Category: VANLIFE

A common through that many people have when they learn of or consider vandwelling:

“How do you live without a bathroom? Where to you pee? Where do you poop? Oh my god – Where do you take showers!? People who live in vans must be filthy. I can’t do that!”

Ok, take a deep breath. Everything’s going to be ok. You’ll be able to poop and pee and keep yourself clean.

What I’ll cover

Where to pee. In cities, and out camping

Where and how to poop. In cities and out camping

How to clean your body. (You don’t need a shower. You need a way to clean your body. Forget about showers. They aren’t as special as you may think)

A few other small details

That’s it. This stuff is easy. Once you’ve been living in a van for a few weeks, you’ll be relieved at how simple and easy it can actually be. The things you worried about will be gone.

For women – sorry, I don’t have any specific advice on menstruation, peeing, or makeup. But don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll work out just fine.

Super Brief Summary

Since this post is long, but the advice is simple, here it is very quickly for those who don’t want to read the entire post:

When in cities, pee and poop in toilets. Also, pee in a bottle and dump it outside

When outside of cities, pee on the ground. Each time you poop, dig hole 8 inches deep to poop in

Clean your body with a wet bandana. It works very well. Showers are for suckers.

Hello. I’m clean, and I don’t smell bad at all!

Forget about bathrooms and showers.

You don’t need them.

Humans have existed for 200,000 years. Toilets have been in use for about 400 years. Indoor showers have been in regular use for about a hundred years. So that’s 199,600 years that humans have lived without toilets and 199,800 years without showers. And most of these humans were not walking around with poop all over them. I expect most of them were quite clean. Some people or books may tell you that people used to be really stinky, but these are probably declarations made by people who think a shower is the only way to get clean. Once you experiment with simpler ways to clean yourself, stinky people will start to confound you in ways they never did before.

So. Let’s repeat it again. You don’t need showers. YOU DON’T NEED SHOWERS. And when you’re not in a city, you don’t need toilets, and in fact, it’s better for the world if you don’t use a toilet while you’re not in a city.

When it comes to hygiene while traveling, forget about trying to replicate all the things you currently do. Focus on what you need to achieve – being clean, comfortable, and healthy. You’ll find that you can accomplish those in much simpler ways than you’re used to. And you’ll probably find that it costs less, uses way less water, is better for the environment, and maybe is more fun.

PEEING – Where and How

OUTSIDE OF CITIES

Just pee on the ground. That’s it. Nothing more to it. Don’t pee in the exact same spot all the time. And walk a little ways away from your van.

IN CITIES

You generally have two options. Well, three.

1 – Pee in a bottle. Get yourself a pee bottle. You just need some type of container that you’ve designated a pee bottle. It’s good to have one with a wide mouth. I use a standard Nalgene 1 liter bottle that is opaque. It works very well except for those times when I really REALLY have to pee – because it’s more than 1 liter. That’s kind of fascinating to me. I used to wonder how much volume my bladder holds, and know I know.

Anyways, you just pee in the bottle, and then dump it out on the ground outside. Dump it on plants/rocks/dirt. You don’t need to worry much about people seeing you dump it out. They won’t expect that it’s pee, and even if they do, there’s not any problem with dumping out some pee.

You’ll need to clean this bottle periodically. You can put water in it, shake it up, and dump it out. You can use soap to clean it. You can just put a tiny bit of soap into it after each time you dump it out. If gets offensively smelly, you’re not cleaning it enough.

A pee bottle is a wonderful thing to have at night. It removes the need to go outside to pee, which is particularly nice when it’s really cold outside. It’s also a lot easier to just take one step out of bed and pee in a bottle than it is to walk outside.

2 – Pee in Toilets. You just find a toilet and pee in it. That’s it. There are publicly accessible restrooms all over the place. I’ve made a list below of places where you can go use the bathroom. Generally, Starbucks and McDonalds are all over the place and they keep their bathrooms clean.

Fancy restaurants. Don’t worry, just walk in there and walk straight to the bathroom. Nothing bad is going to happen to you.

Hotels (nearly all hotels have public restrooms on the first floor. If you’re on the hunt for a luxurious toilet, go to a luxurious hotel)

Libraries

Courthouses

Gas stations (but they are generally to be avoided)

Grocery stores

Book stores

Coffee Shops

Bars

Some parks

Box stores like Wal-Mart and Target

Buildings on college/university campuses

These are also where you’ll poop while in cities.

In most ports of most cities, you’re never more than a couple blocks from a bathroom you can use.

“What about when I have to poop in the middle of the night!?”

You won’t. When’s the last time you had to poop in the middle of the night?

Your body has a keen way of knowing what frequency of pooping is good or acceptable, and adjusting to it. When I lived in the city, I’d poop multiple times every day. Now while I’m out camping, I never have to poop more than once a day. Your body just understands and adjusts to make things easier.

3 – Extra Option – pee on the ground. While you’re in cities, it’s still an option to pee on the ground. Whether this is a good idea depends a lot on where you are and how many people are near you. You probably won’t want to do this often. Don’t get yourself in trouble for it.

POOPING – Where and How

IN CITIES

Use a toilet. The same kind of ones where you pee sometimes.

If some day the need arises to poop inside your rig, here’s a way to do it:

First, you pee. In your bottle or on the ground. Get all your pee out! Of course, if you really have to poop, this isn’t all that easy, but try hard, it’s worth it. You’ll find out why.

Get three or so plastic grocery bags or trash bags. Put them inside each other so you’ve got three layers of bag.

Put a bunch of paper towels down in the bottom of the bag. Don’t be stingy with them.

Squat and poop into the bag. If you do pee some, get it on the paper towels. That’s why you put a lot of them in there

Wipe and put your toilet paper in the bag. Tie it up, if there’s enough bag, double it around itself and tie it again.

Go put it in a public trash can. Quickly. Probably the kind that’s outside and that a person who’s walking their dog would put their dog’s poop in.

OUTSIDE OF CITIES

Poop is meant to go in or on the ground. Once you finally poop outside, and are comfortable with the process, you’re probably going to feel particularly good and accomplished after you poop. How often do you feel that when you poop in a toilet?

Here’s what you do:

In your van, set up a “poop hike bag”. In the bag, have a little shovel. I use a small gardening trowel, like this one. Also, have a roll of toilet paper. If you have a bag that you can dedicate to this purpose, leave them in the bag, so when it’s time to go poop you don’t have to get out all three things, you can just grab the poop bag and you’re ready to go.

Wait until you really need to poop. Also, it’s ideal to time your urinating so that you will also pee a lot when you poop. It works much better that way. If you end up leaving to poop and you have just recently peed, it’s worth bringing along a some water. So:

Walk off away from the van and other people. Walk in a direction where you think there will not be many rocks, or where there will be at least some spots without a lot of rocks. You’ll get used to figuring out where these places are.

You might as well walk quite a ways and make it into a little hike.

Find a spot on the ground where it looks like you can dig a hole. Generally, you want a spot without a lot of plants growing (ideally, none), and without any rocks on the surface. A place that looks like it will be easy to dig. You also might as well do it in a spot that has a nice view. I tell you what: I’ve pooped with some amazing views. Sure beats looking at a wall, a magazine, or a phone screen.

Get out the shovel and start digging. Dig a hole least 8 inches deep and about 6 inches wide.

If you run into a lot of rocks, or some really big rocks right away, consider finding a different place to dig your hole.

Digging the hole can be hard work, and it can take a while. It’s most difficult where there is clay or where there are many rocks. It’s the easiest in a desert area where there aren’t many rocks. Don’t skimp on the depth. Get it at least 8″ deep. There’s no need to dig any deeper than 10″. But if you’re digging in a really sandy area, the deeper the better. As you’re digging the hole, put the dirt and rocks that you dig up into a pile about 1 foot away from the hole. Don’t just throw it wherever. You’ll need this to refill the hole. If you feel like you can’t dig a hole, consider whether it would be easier to find a different spot to dig. If it’s just hard and it will be hard everywhere, take your time and keep at it. If it is physically very hard for you, well, then you’re getting some good exercise, and you’ll get stronger. There is technique to digging, and you will also improve your digging skill and get used to what type of digging motions work well for you and how to get large rocks out of there.

Once your hole is ready, find yourself a solid looking stick. Get one that’s 8″ or longer, and at least twice as thick as a pencil.

Now it’s time to poop. Get out your toilet paper, drop your pants, and squat over the hole. Focus on having the right body position so that both your pee and your poop go into the hole, and not any of it goes on your pants or shoes. I’m generally leaning back a bit while squatted, which gets my feet ahead of me and out of the way. I’ll usually have one hand behind me to support my body, and use the other to aim to make sure I pee into the hole. I’ve wondered if I should take off my pants so I can have my legs wider, but haven’t tried that yet.

If you’ve done like I recommended and waited until you really needed to poop, you’ll bee able to poop quickly. That works better because it gives your pee less time to soak in to the ground.

Then, wipe with your toilet paper and put it into the hole. (Generally, the official recommendations are to pack out your toilet paper. I’m pretty certain that if you follow my directions, you don’t need to bother packing it out).

Pull up your pants

(if you knew you wouldn’t have to pee and brought water, now is the time to dump it into the hole)

Pick up the stick. Put it down into your poop and pee and toilet paper and stir it all up. Focus on mixing the toilet paper and the poop together and breaking up the toilet paper. Keep stirring and mixing it until it appears homogenious – like mud – and until you can’t recognize any of the toilet paper. It should look like really we mud at this point. Push some of the dirt back into the hole and mix that with the poop. Do a few scoops . This will help the poop break down into soil faster. When you’re done stirring, break the stick about in half by pressing it down into the hole or against the side of it. Let the bottom end of the stick (the end that has poop on it) drop into the hole.

Refill the hole. As it’s getting full, keep track of where the hole was. Move all of the dirt/rocks that you dug out (and some extra) onto and above the hole. You’ll have a little mount/hill.

Stand up and step/stomp on that hill to compress the dirt. If you didn’t dig your hole deep enough, this is the point where you’ll learn about your mistake and maybe get a dirty shoe.

Put your shovel and toilet paper back in your bag.

Think about how great you feel, and how good the dirt right here is going to feel as it gets all the nutrients and such that you just gave it.

Walk back.

Wash your hands with whatever method you use. A simple method is to get a paper towel wet and wipe down your hands, and then use some hand sanitizer.

That was a lot of writing about a simple process. I’ve included a lot of detail to allay whatever concerns or confusion you had. If it seems like this is difficult or a lot of work, don’t worry, it’s not bad. I’ve found that it actually works out very nicely as it’s a way to assure I go out for a walk every day.

Did I just spot a good place to poop?

Cleaning Your Body

A reminder first – the goal here is to get your body clean. It is NOT to re-create the same methods that we’ve used at bathrooms in houses or apartments.

When it comes to finding a good method to clean yourself while traveling, here are some of the important criteria:

How clean you get

How easy or difficult it is to do

How long it takes

How much enjoyment or discomfort it may cause

How much water it requires

How much equipment you need and how much it costs

If there’s a chance of making a mess in your vehicle or getting water where you don’t want it

If you’re getting things wet, how long they take to dry

Whether it’s possible to use this method inside your vehicle

If a method fails badly on any of these criteria, it’s not a very good method. The best method should do well on all of these criteria.

Why showering is for suckers

Or – the inefficiency of trying to recreate showers on the road

A shower requires a lot of water. In a home bathroom, a shower puts out 2 to 5 gallons of water per minute. Take a 5 minute shower, and we’re talking 15 gallons. That’s 126 lbs of water. LOTS of water.

Now, consider what happens with the water when you take a shower. Your skin is mostly impermeable, which is nice because that means it’s waterproof. So, when the water comes out of the shower-head, some of it hits your body and some goes straight to the ground. That water that hits your body mostly bounces right off or runs down you onto the ground within a couple seconds. So you’re getting, on average, about 1 second of use out of almost all the water coming out of the shower head.

This is an incredibly wasteful way to use water. When you have a seemingly infinite supply of fresh water, and it is nearly free, that doesn’t seem to matter. But when you have to carry and drive your water around, that starts to matter a lot.

To expand on the numbers and make this even more clear: If you were going to go out camping for one week, and would take one shower each day, that would use about 100 gallons of water – which is over 800 lbs and would take up a lot of space. You’re not going to haul that much water around. So what can you do? You can use less water. That would help. Maybe you use 20% as much water. That’s still a lot to carry around. Maybe you use 10% as much, that’s still a lot. When most of the water you use is going to touch your body for 1 second and fall to the ground, you just can’t win.

See – showering is for suckers.

There are other problems with showers. It is equipment intensive. You need something to store all that water in. You probably need hoses and a showerhead or valve. You’ll probably need a way to heat the water. You’ll need to only take showers when you’re in a secluded place, or you’ll probably want some kind of curtain to set up around you.

Forget about all this. You don’t need a shower. You just need to clean your body.

You Don’t Need Soap

Soap is also something that’s for suckers. Well, not entirely. But – soap is is overused like crazy. It has been consummerized to a ridiculous extent, and an insane amount of money, time, and materials are wasted on soap.

Let’s go back to the starting point here – we’re talking about cleaning your body. Again, your skin is generally impermeable. When dirt gets on you, most all of that dirt just sits on the outside of your skin. You can use water alone (and something like your hand or a washcloth) to remove 99.5% of the dirt. Using soap, you can remove 99.7% of the dirt. Yeah, soap is for suckers.

Soap is more useful for cleaning materials that absorb dirt – like fabrics. Cotton and other materials can soak up moisture. When they get muddy, that dirt gets ~’inside’ the fabric much more than it can get inside your skin. Soap helps remove the dirt from the fabric. (Soap essentially works by adhering to dirt, and the soap is easier to rinse away than dirt, so when you rinse away the soap, it takes the dirt with it.) But on your skin, dirt is so easy to rinse away that soap becomes nearly useless.

Does this sound surprising? I dare you to do an experiment – go without soap for one week. If you’re hesitant, you could just start by not using shampoo. Continue taking your showers, and still clean yourself. You just get your hair and body wet in the shower and rub them with your hands. You should probably rub them a bit more than if you were using soap. But since you’re not using soap, the shower is simpler, and the time you had spent managing and using the soap is replaced by rubbing yourself more. You’ll still get nice and clean. See for yourself. (While you’re doing this experiment, I still recommend using soap on the few parts of your body that get the dirtiest – like your butt and maybe your armpits and feet. Eventually, you’ll realize you don’t really need soap for those, but let’s start small here).

Ok – so – showers are for suckers, and soap is for suckers.

You don’t need a lot of products

Here’s a picture of all the hygiene products I use:

I probably should have also included bandana and paper towels. I also have a hair clipper and an electric shaver (I also have a double edge razor but in the van I just use the shaver as I don’t need to bother with water)I’ve shared this only as an example. You may wish to use many more products or much fewer. I could get rid of everything in the bottom row (except maybe lotion in really dry areas) and be fine – or maybe even healthier because of it. I know for sure that my body doesn’t actually need baby powder on it.

I’ve went on and on about soap and showers and product to help clear your mind of those methods that are common in a big fancy house bathroom. So now let’s go back to the goal of cleaning yourself. I’ll start out by sharing a variety of methods that would work in varying degrees. Some of them will satisfy some of the criteria I listed above but fail on others. And then, I’ll share what I’ve found to be the best method in detail.

Methods for Cleaning Yourself

First, here’s a reminder of the important criteria of body cleaning methods:

How clean you get

How easy or difficult it is to do

How long it takes

How much enjoyment or discomfort it may cause

How much water it requires

How much equipment you need and how much it costs

If there’s a chance of making a mess in your vehicle or getting water where you don’t want it

If you’re getting things wet, how long they take to dry

Whether it’s possible to use this method inside your vehicle

Now, as you look through these cleaning methods, consider how well they accomplish the criteria above. Most of these have some major limitations and drawbacks.

Bucket of water and washcloth

Bathing in rivers, lakes, hot springs, and oceans

Using campground showers

Using Truck Stop showers

Showering at the homes of friends and family

Showering at a gym

Using wet wipes or a similar product

Using some type of mobile shower system

Wiping yourself with a wet rag

The best way to clean yourself

First, I’ll try to get you excited about it by sharing how well it accomplishes the important criteria of cleaning yourself:

You can get very clean. 99% as clean as a full on shower with soap. Clean enough that your picky girlfriend will never take issue.

It is very easy to do.

It takes only 5-10 minutes

It is not uncomfortable.

It uses only about three ounces of water. That’s it! (maybe more if you have a lot of hair to wash)

It uses very little equipment. A week’s worth of bathing equipment takes up about the size of a 12oz can.

There is basically zero chance of making a mess in your vehicle or getting water where you don’t want it

When you’re done, your body is already more or less dry (you don’t ever need to dry yourself with a towel), and the bathing equipment is all dry in an hour or two.

You can do this method anywhere and everywhere. You can do it inside your van with a hundred people outside and they will never have any idea.

A “Rag Bath”

This method is essentially cleaning yourself with a washcloth. It has been used for many many thousands of years. It’s been so popular because it works so well. I’ve used other materials for the washcloth and I’ve settled on bandana. They are very thin and that’s why they work well. Because they are thin:

They get saturated with very little water

They dry very quickly

They take up very little storage space

They also work well because they are cheap. You can buy them for $1. They are durable and they last a long time. Forget about things that you have to take out of a package every time you bath – like wet wipes. Most of those are going to leave you feeling strangely sticky and chemically, and probably with a weird unnatural smell. You don’t need a product in a package every time you clean yourself.

The Bandana Ragbath Process

If it gets cold at night where you are, it’s generally better to do this while it’s near the warmest part of the day. If you exercise each day, do this after you’ve finished exercising and let your body cool down.

If it is quite cold where you are or when you want to bathe, and you want to make it more comfortable, warm up the water you’ll use first. When it’s really cold out, the water in your van will also get colder, and it will feel very cold on your body. If you heat up the water, it can feel kind of nice.

Get a normal bath towel or something similar. Lay it on the floor inside your vehicle.

Get out a clean bandana

Get a cup or some water container and put at least 4oz of water in it.

Take off your clothes and sit down on the towel

All ready to go, with a towel to sit on, a bandana, and some water

Fold the bandana, get part of it folded over so it’s about 8 layers thick. (see picture below). hold that part in your hand and have your fingers out and up so that part of the bandana is sort of cupped. Pour some water onto that part of the bandana. Give it some time to soak in, so that most of the water you poured is absorbed.

Letting water soak into the bandana

Wipe yourself with the wet bandana. Start with your face.

Pour more water on the bandana when needed to that the part of it you’ll use is saturated with water. Get it wet enough so there is water/wetness on your body while you’re cleaning, but that you don’t get totally soaked. Your skin should dry on it’s own within a minute or so. If you need to towel off a lot of your body at the end, you’re getting yourself more wet than you need to.

Start with your face. Then clean the other parts of your body that are the least dirty. Finish by cleaning the dirtiest parts of your body. Also, if there are some parts you want to make sure you get especially clean, do those early on.

As you go, refold and reverse the bandana so you’re using cleaner parts of it on yourself.

Clean your butt with a wet paper towel

The last parts of your body to clean with the bandana would normally be your armpits and feet.

Now you’re done. Put the bandana somewhere to dry. Depending on if/how wet the towel you’re sitting on got, either put that somewhere to dry, or put it away.

Rejoice. You’re very clean and you barely used any water. Isn’t mother nature (or physics) wonderful? You’re so clean now and you didn’t need to buy or use any products, and it barely took any water. This is SO EASY! Now you can relax and feel clean, go to sleep and feel cozy, go on a date, have sex, or whatever else you like to do while clean.

Rule #1 – Keep your Butt Clean

It’s quite late in the post to tell you this, but here it is. The #1 rule of Vanlife is to keep your butt clean.

There is a very good documentary called Surfwise, about a man and his family who lived in a mid size RV for decades. There’s a man and wife, and their NINE children. All in the one RV. The man is fascinating. He was a doctor, he was the first person to expose people in Isreal to surfing and he got famous for it, and many of his children became world-class surfers – literally – world champions. The first half of this documentary is about how the man and wife came to meet, and how they lived in the RV. One specific line I remember from the movie: “Rule #1 of living in the RV is: Keep Your Butt Clean”.

You may be able to find the documentary on Netflix or other streaming services. Or, if you really want, on Youtube.

He was right – it is important to keep your butt clean. That is, by far, the part of your body that gets the dirtiest. You may want to clean it a couple times a day.

Last point on bathing

Bathe yourself ever single day. Don’t skip days. If you bathe every day you’ll feel nice and clean. You won’t get stinky.

Don’t stink up your van with dirty laundry

Store it in a breathable container. A mesh laundry bag works well.

Don’t put it in that bag while it’s wet. Let it dry first.

You may like to put it in the sun first. The sun’s rays can kill a lot of bacteria and actually get fabrics quite clean (other than removing dirt). This is very effective for clothes that are stinky. Leave them in the sun for a few hours and they will stink much less, or not at all. Some folks will do a sort of dry sun laundry. They put the clothes in the sun for a few hours, maybe turn them around so both sides get the rays, and then consider them clean.

Signs you’re doing something wrong

If you smell bad

If your van smells bad

If you’re getting sick regularly. (though this could be from other reasons)

Don’t just endure these. DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT. You may not be able to stay exactly as clean while living in a vehicle as when you have a house with a shower and all that, but you can very easily stay 95% as clean. Don’t just assume you’ll be dirty. And don’t accept it (Unless you don’t mind being dirty. then, you know, whatever floats your boat, buddy.)

Conclusion

Have you tried out the bandana rag bath yet? Comment to tell me what you think of it. Or – what was it like the first few times you dug a hole and pooped outside?

In a previous how-to post, I shared how to find campsites using google maps and MVUMs. In this post, I’ll show you how to use various forms of Google Maps to save locations.

Location research can take a lot of work, and it’s important to document your learnings as you go. It’s also important for you to be able to access and use that information when you need it – and sometimes that means while you’re driving around looking for a campsite in a remote place with no cell reception (and thus, no internet service to access what you’ve saved online). I’ll show you how to manage through all this.

The map types I will share are:

Google Maps on a phone

Google Maps on a computer

Google’s “My Maps” (which is best for detailed planning)

How to access your My Maps info through Google Maps

And How to access your My Maps info offline using third party apps.

Keeping Track of Spots

While scouting for places to camp through online maps, we will eventually find a road with potential places to camp. We could just call our research done and drive out there to find a spot. If we really like planning ahead, or we want more information to help us while we’re out there, we could mark the campsites we find on a map. This can be very useful at times, for:

If we really want to find one specific location that we’ve identified

Helping us know where the campsites start. (Say there are about ten campsites along a road.Kknowing where they start helps us keep track of where we are, and to not get frustrated that we aren’t seeing any spots when we simply haven’t gotten to where they start

Help us know when not to drive any further. Again, if there are ten sites on a road, and we have the last one marked on our map, we’ll know not to drive any further past that point, which will save us time, frustration, gas, and wear on our vehicle.

That could mean literally marking them with a pen on the MVUM or other paper map. Or that could mean saving the locations on a map we use on the computer or phone. I’ll describe two methods for the later strategy. The first method is a simple one, to save the locations on Google Maps on your phone. The other is to use Google’s My Maps, which works better for when you want to add a lot of detail.

Saving Locations in Google Maps on a Phone

[I’m showing an Android version of Google Maps. It may be slightly different on iPhones or later Android versions]

If we want to put a marker on our map, such as, where permitted dispersed camping starts along a road (which, for National Forests, we’d find from a MVUM or Motor Vehicle Use Map) we can find that spot in Google Maps – either by going to it on our phone, or if we have found it on Google Maps on the computer and we don’t want to re-find it on our phone, we can look at the GPS coordinates and type them in our phone.

On the computer, to find the coordinates, you can generally just click on the map (sometimes it takes a little bit longer of a click), a marker will appear, and the coordinates will be shown:

We can find it on the phone:

Then touch the part of the screen that has the GPS coordinates (the one on the lower half of the screen). And then click on “Save

Then choose which display icon you want to use. For this example I use “Want to go”

Then back out a couple times, and you will have the spot saved on your map.

You may also wish to add the locations of some potential campsites, and of where the campsites end, or as far as you want to drive.

Then, when you’re ready to go out there, you can select one of those saved points and get directions to it:

Offline Maps:

In Google Maps for your phone, it is very useful to save the maps offline. This way you can use Google Maps for searching and navigation even when you have no cellular reception.

Here’s how to do it: first, touch the button in the upper left corner with three horizontal lines, in the menu that comes up, you will touch “Offline maps”

Then, touch “Select your own map”.

(Note that this is also where you come to delete maps from your phone once you no longer need them. Doing this will not delete the points you’ve saved)

Position the map so that the area you want downloaded is in the box, and touch “Download”

Now, while you’re in this area and don’t have reception, Google Maps will work very nearly as well as if you do.

Google Maps on a Computer

On a computer, Google Maps works essentially the same in all the ways described above. If you’re logged into your Google account on both the phone and computer, spots that you’ve saved on your phone will generally be visible when you view Google Maps from your computer, and vice-versa. This doesn’t work perfect though. It may only work for spots you’ve saved as stars, and sometimes it takes a while for spots to transfer over.

Google’s My Maps

My Maps is a very good mapping utility. It works nearly the same as Google Maps, but it allows you to save locations with a much more detailed set of icons and shapes. You can enter text and even pictures for any point or shape that you save. You can use it on a computer or phone.

The main limitation of My Maps is that you cannot use it offline like Google Maps. That’s why I use My Maps for planning, and for sharing information. But when I want to go to a certain area, I’ll put some of the key points on Google Maps so I can access them when I’m outside of phone reception.

A couple other notes:

It is possible to see the My Maps data inside Google Maps, but it only works while online.

For offline use, you can download your My Maps data with a .KMZ file and import that file into a third-party maps utility. I explain how to do this later in this post.

To get to My Maps, use http://Google.com/MyMaps. On Phones, there is a My Maps app to download. In My Maps, you can save multiple map files. If you put in a lot of detail, I recommend organizing your entries into separate map files, because there are some limits on the number of points you can enter. For example, you can only save 10 driving routes per map file. I like to enter the Scenic Byways and other very scenic roads on my planning maps, so I can hit the limit on driving routes quickly.

When you first go into My Maps, this is what you’ll see – a selection of the different maps you’ve created and saved so far:

Once you’re in a map, you can create and save:

Single points

Driving Routes

Shapes and Lines

Single Points:

When you’re saving a single point, there are a lot of options for the icon and its color. You can enter text and pictures for that single point. Here is how the pictures and text display when you click on a location you’ve saved

And here are the color and icon options:

There are many icons to choose from. Here are some:

Here’s an example of data that I’ve added to a map for travel planning. I’m highlighting many things – places to camp, to hike, to take pictures, plus driving routes, and I’m using the shapes to highlight land types.

Accessing your My Maps info in Google Maps

This is useful if you want to view the My Maps data and also use driving directions. You get all the combined functionality of Google Maps and My Maps (except for being able to save new My Maps info).

Here’s how to do it.

First, make sure you are logged into Google Maps using the same Google account that contains your My Maps info. In Google maps, touch the button in the upper left corner – the three horizontal lines.

Select the first option: “Your Places”

In the options shown along the blue bar, touch “Maps”. (You may need to scroll over to the right to see it, as it is the option on the furthest right).

Your saved maps will be listed. Pick one to display

The limitation with this is that the My Maps info cannot be saved offline. It all works perfect as long as you have reception. When you lose reception, the My Maps info may disappear.

How to see your My Maps info offline

As we’ve seen above, we can’t use Google’s apps to see our My Maps info offline.

But – there are still other options. We can use a third party app to see our our My Maps info offline. There are many that work, I’ll share two of them below.

But first – here’s a simpler process using just My Maps and Google Maps. This is what I do most of the time since I can usually expect to get a data signal somewhere along the way between this place that I’m heading to and wherever I go next:

For planning on the computer, use Google’s My Maps.

While planning, download the area you’ll be going to in the offline maps on your phone (In Google Maps)

Once you know where you want to go, manually copy over the most important spots from My Maps to Google Maps on your phone. (as shown near the start of this post)

Using this method, you will have your map available and usable offline, and you’ll have some key spots marked. This isn’t perfect, because you can’t see all of your My Maps info offline. If you have a whole lot on your My Maps, and you know you’ll be out of reception, it may be useful to take a screenshot of the map in My Maps, so you can look at that later and use the information.

How to access all of your My Maps data offline:

You can also download your My Maps data in a .KML or .KMZ file for offline use. Here’s how your planning process can look:

When done planning on My Maps, save the map as a KMZ and email it to yourself

Open that email on your phone, open the KMZ file using your maps utility.

To export a .KMZ file from My Maps, click the three dots near the top left corner:

Then click “Export to KML”, and download the file. It will automatically save as a KMZ, which is what you want. The file will go into your “Downloads” folder in your computer (or, wherever else you have your web browser set to download files to)

Apps for using KMZ files offline on a phone

Now, you’ll need to move this file to your phone. Here are two apps that work:

Free app: Maps.Me. There are versions for android and iOS. I haven’t tested this app much, but it looks good.

Paid app: Backcountry Navigator Pro. It costs about $10 and is available on Android or Apple. This is a very extensive app that allows you to download and use maps from many different sources – mostly satellite views and topo maps. You can save your own locations on the maps using a huge variety of icons. Having offline satalite and topo views can be extremely useful while out in offline areas. Google maps only downloads the normal map view of roads. With a satalite and topo view, you can see what’s on the other side of the next big hill or mountain without needing to drive or hike all the way over there.

The quickest way to transfer your My Maps data is to email the file to yourself. Then open the KMZ file from your email and your phone will show you apps that can display it.

Looking at an email containing the KMZ

When we touch/click one of those map files, a list of applications we have that can use the file is displayed:

Here’s how it looks once loaded into the Maps.Me app. A lot of the functionality is lost, but it does shows all the saved points and driving routes (including their titles when you zoom in)

And here’s how it looks in Backcountry Navigator Pro. This works slightly better, as it also shows the highlighted areas (with outlines)

End

Try out different methods in addition to the ones I’ve described here. You may find that you enjoy doing a ton of detailed planning and knowing exact spots to go to. Or you may find you like to just pick a general area and leave discovery fully open. You may also like to use paper maps, and there are good ones available if you wish.

Sometimes when I think of California I’m reminded of this part from the movie “Pumping Iron”. It’s a documentary about bodybuidlers from back when Arnold was in his prime. One of the bodybuilders – Franco Columbu – grew up in Italy, and lived in Los Angeles (as did many of the top bodybuilders). He explained that in Italy, people use the expression “Go to California”, a bit like people say “go to hell”, but less insulting. They considered California to be a dreamy/magic place that no one actually goes to. So he explained that when he goes back to Italy to visit, and people as him where he lives, and he tells them California, they’re not sure if he’s serious or if he’s just fucking with them.

Map of Travels

California Dreamin’

This map shows September and October (but not the trip to Toronto). I drove down to LA from southwest Utah in one day, because it was so damn hot everywhere around here except right on the coast.

High tide in Isla Vista (West of Santa Barbara, where UCSB is)

Since then, I’ve floated around the area, spending most of my time in Santa Barbara and Encinitas. I spent a lot of time at the beach in both towns. After a few weeks in hot and dry parts of Utah, my first few swims in the ocean felt incredibly refreshing.

The beach in Santa Barbara

The van is so awesome to have at the beach. I can drive there in the morning, make coffee and stroll around on the beach drinking it, then go have breakfast, then come back to the beach for a while, then back for lunch and doing stuff on the computer, and so on.

Moonlight Beach in Encinitas. Spent a lot of days here.

Personal Photography Projects

So, taking pictures of the van can get pretty repetitive. Particularly when I’m editing them. Stuff like the interior van pictures can really get to feeling like I’m doing the same thing over and over again. I notice this particularly when I’m editing. I have started editing less/quicker, which helps quite a lot with that.

I’d like to challenge myself to get more creative with what/how I shoot the van pictures, but that would usually require more setting a tripod and everything for shots that include me. And I just don’t get too excited about doing that often.

A morning in Isla Vista

When I switched camera systems, I more lenses that I can use to shoot in ways I couldn’t before with my small set. Most of them are really cheap and old lenses, but they still work very well in most situations.

Once I got the new camera and old lenses, I wanted to practice shooting with them, so I went out on the beach in Santa Barbara that allows dogs. More recently I’ve been shooting surfers. I want to start approaching these kind of things more as projects, which means sorting and culling the pictures into a complimentary group, shooting regularly until I feel I have some good stuff, and then having an end of that project. (which, of course doesn’t mean I would totally stop shooting that kind of thing). I think this will be good practice for me to get better at photography. And it’s fun.

I’ll be doing more of these kind of projects. I’d like if some of them here and there are things I can either make money from, share with the people (or owners of what) I’m shooting, or share in some other way besides just here and on Instagram.

Doggies at the beach

To test out how well I could manually focus with the brand new camera and the lenses as old as my dad, I shot some dogs running around on the beach. It worked fairly well, but it’s pretty tricky and I deleted a LOT of pictures. These dogs running around in pretty close proximity are probably as fast as anything I’d ever shoot.

It’s wonderful to camp out in ‘nature’ with nice views, fresh air, places to go hike and do other fun things, and space for yourself without other people. But there will be times that you have good reasons to be in cities and towns. Maybe you’ll need some wifi and a place to get some work done, or to go shopping, do laundry, to meet people, or to spend time with friends and family. But you’re not supposed to camp in a city, right? You’re supposed to live in a house or apartment or at least a hotel. Well…. no. Camping in a city is A-OK. And in this post I’ll show you where to park and sleep in cities.

From a nice little park overlooking Seattle and Mt. Rainier

First – Some Important things

Actively ensure you are safe from violence, theft, or people crashing into your vehicle

Don’t scare people, don’t get bothered by or in trouble with police

Blend in as much as is reasonably easy

For sleeping, arrive to the spot at bedtime, leave when you wake. DO NOT STAY there into the next day.

Don’t keep sleeping in the same spot

Use blackout window covers

You can sleep in all kinds of neighborhoods – near houses, apartments, businesses, industrial areas, downtown, and so on. I’ll share examples from each type of neighborhood.

In Encinitas, CA

Vehicle types

The best vehicle for stealth camping inside a city is probably a minivan or SUV. If the outside looks normal, no one would ever guess a person is sleeping inside.

People generally don’t notice solar panels or roof vents, but the more there are of that kind of thing, the more likely they recognize it as a camper.

White cargo vans are the next best vehicle.

Obvious RVs – (conversion vans with the stripes on them, or RVs or trailers) stand out the most, and a good deal of people will assume you’re sleeping in there.

The higher your vehicle is on the list above, the easier it is to camp in cities and blend in. If you have an obvious recreational vehicle, it’s going to be a bit tougher. But you can still do it.

Beach parking lot in Ocean Beach, San Diego, CA. Great place to spend the day (by coming in the morning when spots are open), but overnight parking not allowed – and it get’s weird there at night anyways

Block out your windows!

The most important modification for your vehicle to camp in cities is to have a way to block all light at the windows. The most common method for this is to use blackout curtains. Other methods are to paint the inside of the windows or to make some kind of insert. Reflectix is the worst method because it is commonly used by “homeless people” and down-on-their-luck drug addicts. You don’t want to look like one of those. At night, when you have lights on inside your vehicle, you should either have all your windows blocked, or you should be parked in a place where you don’t care if people notice. When I’m in the city I keep my curtains up nearly all the time, except that I take some down while I’m driving, or sometimes while I’m inside the van.

Parking lot behind casinos, on the strip in Las Vegas. I slept here many nights and would just keep the van here without moving it.

(This is how my van looks with the curtains up and the lights on inside)

Overall strategy

Blend in! While you’re parked somewhere in a city, the main thing you want to avoid is having people notice your vehicle (and you) and get scared, worried, or bothered by you. The more reasonable it would seem that your vehicle is there for a normal reason, the better.
During the day, blending in is less important. But still, here are some ways to do that:

Generally, no one gets bothered by vehicles in parking lots. So as long as it’s parking lot that’s open to the public, you can probably spend as much time as you want there. Parking lots that are shared by multiple business are better.

In residential areas, people are most likely to be bothered in neighborhoods where few or no people park on the streets. Residents who have big houses are the most likely to be alarmed by your vehicle – these folks know the cars of their neighbors, and are generally the most worried about burglaries, so they notice unfamiliar people and vehicles very quickly.

In a neighborhood with houses closer together where a lot of people live and where many people park on the street, residents are less likely to take notice of new vehicles. This is especially true where street parking is used so much that a resident wouldn’t normally expect to be able to park right in front of their home.

Coming and going at the right times, so even if someone does notice you and get bothered, you’re likely gone before anything happens (and don’t worry, what happens is not that bad. I’ll cover that later)

A note on exactly where you park. It’s safer to park on street where fewer people drive, and it’s safer to park a little ways in front of another vehicle – that way if someone (a drunk or distracted driver maybe) is driving along and smashes into the back of a parked car, your rig is less likely to be hit.

In Portland

Don’t hang out where you sleep!

This one is simple and is every bit as important as choosing the right place to park. Do this:

At some point in the day (it could be right at bedtime), get an idea of where you want to park

Once you’re entirely ready for bed, drive to (or find) the spot where you’ll sleep. (You don’t have to scope out the exact spot prior to this, you just needed to have ideas/areas in mind). Park there.

Go to sleep.

When you wake up in the morning, drive somewhere else. It could be just one block away.

This way, you’ll be arriving while most people are also getting ready for bed or are asleep. You’ll be gone before most people notice or would do anything about it.

WHERE TO PARK – HOW TO FIND GOOD SPOTS

Residential

The main keys are:

Park in a neighborhood where a lot of people park on the streets

Don’t park in really fancy neighborhoods. Those residents are the most paranoid/worried.

It’s best to not park directly in front of a house. Park on a street that faces the sides of homes, or at least park in the spaces inbetween houses.

Residential – With Houses

Here’s a bad one. It’s too fancy:

This one is also bad – the houses look big and fancy, and barely anyone is parked on the street. But if you really need/want, the best spot is on the side street, highlighted by the red circle.

People who live in big houses call the cops a lot. Generally, the people who will call the police the quickest are people over 40 years of age who have big expensive houses full of expensive stuff that they have concerns about being stolen. The folks least likely to call the police about a van or camper are ages 25 and under, apartment dwellers, and lower middle-class neighborhoods and “below”.

This neighborhood below looks better. A lot of people park on the street, and it’s dense enough that a resident wont be surprised or bothered by any certain vehicle being in front of their home.

Arkansas ave would be a good place to check because less people park on that street. You’ll actually be able to find a parking spot – and one that you can drive forwards into and not have to parallel park. Plus, you’ll be parked on the street facing the sides of people’s homes. A lot of people get the opinion in their head that the length of the street front of their property is theirs, but they feel less so about a street that borders the side of their house. And they’re just less likely to notice you on the side. The spot highlighted below with the grey pin is also not right next to the house, which is better than being parked right next to it, especially when the street is this close to the house. (those are garages along the alley).

Here’s the street view of that spot on Arkansas Ave:

As you can see, you’re in plain view from the house. At night, there were a few other cars also parked on this street, and since it’s area where the streets going the other direction get filled up with park cars, it will just look like you’re a normal person parking in the neighborhood like all the other cars.

Here’s another spot on the end of a block. There are trees obstructing the view of the street from inside the house. (See the grey pin)

Here’s a street view picture of an obstruction between the house and street. The spot that has a car parked in it (with the arrow pointing at it) would be good as it probably can’t be seen from the house windows – the view is blocked by the fence and the tree.

You don’t really need to hide. But, spots like these are much less likely to be seen by residents as “their” spot, and they are less likely to notice you, especially if you’re only there while the residents are inside and sleeping.

The picture below shows another neighborhood where a lot of people park in the street. But there’s one car directly in front of each house. In areas looking like this, the spot in front of each house is most often occupied by someone who lives there. It is, in practice, their spot. Don’t park in their spot.

Residential – With Apartments

Areas with apartments are generally easier/better than houses. With apartments, people are more used to coming and going, and they won’t recognize new vehicles. It’s best to find apartments where (some of) the residents park on the street.

This is an example of an apartment that’s not a good candidate. All the parking is in the apartment property. This is private property.

In practice, you can likely park in there without trouble. But it’s generally better to park near apartments like this:

Note that in an area like this, there will usually be (a lot) more cars parked on the street at night. These map pictures are taken in the middle of the day while most people are at work. This street is a great candidate. If you have solar panels, the spot highlighted with the grey pin would be good – because that’s the spot most likely to get direct sun the earliest. You should, of course, be leaving very early. But if it’s a time of year where the sun comes up around 6am, you might as well be parked in a spot that’s going to get you some juice in your battery.

Here’s a street view of apartments with street parking:

Residential Neighborhoods – Weird Streets

Some parts of the country have residential streets that are paved, but have some dirt or gravel area along some parts of the road that people park on. They can look like this:
map view:

street view:

I avoid these areas. I’m not certain, but I have a feeling those sides of the road are private property, particularly so in the areas where sometimes of the lots have yards going all the way up to the street and some lots have a gravel section next to the road like these.

Industrial Areas

I don’t park in these often, but it’s certainly possible. Here’s an example:
An industrial area:

Map view of a promising spot:

Street view of that spot:

Again, these are streets with the strange gravel section on the sides, so I don’t know for sure whether that’s still the street or whether it’s the property containing that junkyard. So it’s best to leave early in the morning.

Downtown Areas

Parking rules vary widely in downtown areas. Some places have meters that you only have to pay during daytime hours. Some places have “2 hour parking, 8am-6pm” signs. You can park in places like that. Here’s an example of a street I parked on in Carmel-By-The-Sea, a super fancy little town along the California coast:

If you park in a downtown area, find a street that’s less busy. I parked on 8th street in the map above. A few blocks north, the street parallel to this was much busier and had people out walking around late at night (they’d been out to eat/drink), but down here on 8th street, the businesses were long closes and it was super quiet. Some of the California coast towns are tricky, and Carmel is one of those. In Carmel, there’s 2 hour parking downtown during the day. At night, only residents (with a permit) are allowed to park on streets in the residential areas. So I would go down and park at the beach during the day, and then come park downtown to sleep at night. That was a nice time :-).

One night I parked on the busy street downtown in Carmel. I don’t think I was even going to sleep there, but while I was just hanging out, some police came. They were nice and recommended that I go park in a big strip mall / business park and ensured me that I wouldn’t be bothered there.

Nooks and Crannies

Here’s a spot that some people camp. It’s away from any homes or businesses:

And it’s right in the middle of a giant city, in Denver, next to downtown:

Some of the nooks and crannies like this are decent places to park. But some of them have major problems. They are away from houses and apartments and businesses, but they are not away from people. I drove down this street while in Denver this summer. There were a handful of people parked there living out of their cars – really ratty cars full of stuff and trash. And there were some vans and RVs – one that look like they haven’t moved in a year and have piles of trash around them. If you think you’d like to camp in a spot like this in order to be away from people, that doesn’t always work out, and you might end up to people you’d much rather not be near.

Wal-Marts

Many Wal-Marts allow overnight camping. I believe there is a way to check online if a certain store allows it or not.

This website has a list, but it is not official and does not appear to always be updated: http://www.walmartlocator.com/no-park-walmarts/

If you need to plan ahead, of if you prefer to just be sure whether it’s ok, call the store and ask. That’s what is recommended in the FAQ on the Wal-Mart website:

Because I don’t need to plan ahead, I don’t check that. I’ve camped in a couple Wal-Marts where it was obvious camping was allowed and I happened to be right next to it at bed-time.

If, for some reason, you prefer to just try to use Google Maps to see if camping is allowed in a Wal-Mart, sometimes you can see, like this one in Page:

A closer view:

Those are campers. Here’s the street view:

Be warned, this is not a reliable method. The Wal-Mart at Cedar City Utah is also a VERY popular camping site – with around 20 obvious Vans and RVs there each night, so it is clearly allowed, but the Google Maps picture shows no obvious campers.

There are some other businesses that allow camping. Cracker Barrel is one. In some parts of the country, there are Cracker Barrels everywhere. Again, the normal/expected practice is to call the location and ask them about it.

Casinos

Some casinos will either allow you to camp for free, or they won’t notice you or bother you. If you go to Las Vegas, parking at/near the strip can be complicated. There’s usually some place you can park, but that seems to change as construction projects start and and. The off-strip casinos are easy. Here’s one that I believe I slept at:

At off-strip casinos (at least in Vegas) with parking lots like this, you’ll probably be fine. I’m not entirely sure what happens if you have an obvious RV/Camper though.

Businesses where you’re not allowed

When you’re good at blending in, if you choose to, you can often get away with parking at businesses too. I’ve done very little of this, so I don’t know all the ins and outs. I’ve parked at hotels about ten nights worth and never had trouble. Keep in mind that these are private property and they could choose to boot or two your vehicle.

I’ve not done much of this because most of the time I can easily find places to park on public streets. But if you choose to, its a possibility at many different types of businesses.

There are some where you’re less likely to stand out, such as:

Hotels (as long as they aren’t strict about checking the cars and acting on it.. Don’t park in a lot that’s nearly full)

Bars (Ones that are open late and busy late, where some customers may get drunk and then take a cab or Uber home, or find true love and go home with someone else)

Ones with vans. (Some businesses will have a row of white vans outside. If you have a white van, you can probably find yourself a spot)

Grocery stores and others where they have some overnight employees (particularly in parking lots that serve many businesses)

Hospitals

Churches

And so on… Basically, if there’s a parking lot, there’s a possibility. Just don’t blame me if you get in trouble.

Ask the Police

One option is to call or go to the police station and ask them. You can explain that you’re a full time traveler and you’d like to spend a couple days in their city to shop, eat, etc. and ask if they have any advice on where you should park and sleep overnight. I’ve had the police come talk to be four times. Three of those times, they gave me specific and useful advice on where It’d be ok to park overnight. Getting that advice from them right off-the-bat may be a good idea.

Fear / Nervousness

During your first few times camping on a city street or parking lot, you’ll probably have some fear, nervousness, and excitement that comes and goes a few times.

What if someone notices that you’re in there sleeping? — What will they do? Well, what would you do if you were walking down the street and notice someone sleeping in a vehicle. Probably nothing. And you may forget about it entirely by the next day. These days, with vandwelling becoming more and more well known and admired, if someone recognizes you, they might hope or try to make friends with you.

What if someone tries to rob you? That’s not any more likely to happen than if you were in a house. If someone does happen to try to break into your rig, they’re going to be spooked when they realize that someone’s inside. They’re going to run away. (This actually happened to me once when I was parked in a pretty rough neighborhood. Around 7am when I was halfway awake, someone opened the side door of my van. And I though “What!? I forgot to lock it!… Where do I have the nearest knife?… does he see me?”. He was leaning in the van and looking around, and hadn’t seemed to notice me. I just said to him “Close the door”. He did, and then he ran away.

It can just feel like you’re doing something wrong by ~camping in a city. But remind yourself, you only have that feeling because of society norms, and those are not even real things – they’re just made up, they’re just subjective constructs – and much of what’s normal is actually kind of stupid.

Once you’ve done this a few times, it will start to feel more normal and less scary. I do still get some feelings or awareness that I’m doing something very out of the ordinary, which can be a good feeling – a sort of excitement.

If the police come

I’ll probably make a more in-depth post about this. In short:

Usually the cops really don’t care about someone sleeping overnight in a vehicle. They have other more important things to worry about, and also most officers hate doing paper work and prefer for situations to just dissolve without them needing to do anything other than talk to people. If they come talk to you, it’s nearly always because someone called and asked them to, and they’re coming to make sure you’re not some home invader that’s high on bath salts with a van full of stolen stuff. If they realize you’re just a traveler that’s sleeping for the night, they’ll probably be relieved and let their guard down.

Be courteous to them. Do NOT act rude or defensive. You can defend yourself by choosing what you say to them, but do it in a friendly or neutral tone. For example, if they say that someone called them complaining that you’re camping there, you may choose to just say “well, I parked the van here yesterday around 10pm” (with emphasis on ‘parked the van’. Usually they won’t press the question. They usually don’t care. They’re just here because someone called the cops and all they want is for that person to not call the cops more.

The important thing is to help the police realize that you’re a normal person and that you’re not up to no good. The main way to do this is to speak to them clearly and concisely, to not fidget, look them in the eye, and have consistency in your answers (don’t contradict something you previously told them).

Often, the police are just there because someone called and complained. They’re likely to give you advice on where else to go park that you’re less likely to bother anyone.

Many cities have ordinances against sleeping in a vehicle or ‘camping’ in general in the city. So it’s possible for the officer to give you a ticket or maybe worse. I think this happens very rarely and, and the more put-together you and your vehicle are, the less likely it is to happen. I believe those kind of tickets are given out to problematic/long-term street campers, and maybe some here and there that are jerks rude to the officers.

In San Diego

Conclusion

I wish you happy and easy city camping. Living on the fringes of society in this way can take some more effort (of driving around and looking for places), but is really not that hard, and I’ve found it to be easier than managing and taking care of a house. If, by living mobile you are freeing yourself from the need for a house or apartment, you are probably winning in a lot of ways – you’ll likely be living a much less inexpensive life, having an incredibly lower environmental impact, and you have some giant advantages of mobility – you can stay in town for only as long as you want, you can go where you want afterwords, and while you’re in town, if you decide you don’t like a neighborhood or a street, you can move your house in 15 minutes.

In the United States alone, there are over 100,000 squares miles of federal land, and a good portion of this is land you can camp on. There are easily over a million places you could camp. Finding and getting to the ones you’ll like the most takes some work, and in this post I’ll explain how How to find free campsites – beautiful wonderful fun ones.

Camped on an OHV area in the middle of UtahFirst – a note. This is a long and detailed post about how to find campsites yourself. If you are lazy or in a hurry, don’t read this. Just go to www.campendium.com and you’ll probably find plenty of sites good enough for a lazy person.

Scope of this Post

The focus of this post is finding campsites within a certain area. There is a set of related posts I’m expecting to make:

Choosing a general area to go to

Finding campsites (this is the post you’re reading)

Using My Maps and Google Maps to plan travel

How to be prepared when you go out camping

How to not die while you’re out camping

So this post will start with the assumption that you have selected a general area or region where you want to go camp, and shows you how to find a great campsite in that area.

Dispersed Camping

Dispersed Camping is the name used for camping outside of official or improved campsites. Meaning these types of campers are dispersed throughout the area rather than gathered at a campsite.

That means there will be no bathrooms or picnic tables or running water. There will often be fire rings in the places you dispersed camp

Regardless of price, dispersed camping is usually better than camping in official campsites. You can go where you want instead of just to the campsite, you can get better views, and you can get much more space from other campers and have peace and quiet.

Camping in Utah under an amazing night sky

Land types and where you can camp

These are the main ones.

National Parks – Camping is generally only allowed in paid campsites or in hotels. Backcountry camping is an option in some parks (where you park your vehicle and hike in to the park with your camping gear) but you still have to pay for it.

National Forests – The rules vary by forest and even districts. In general, most National Forests allow you to camp wherever you want. But you must not be messing the place up. For example, it’s nearly always ok to drive into an established campsite where there’s already a road or path and a spot to park, but it’s usually now not ok to just pull off a road, drive through a meadow, and stop to set up camp right in the middle of it. Some Forests only allow camping along certain roads. Some only allow camping in small designated areas. Some only allow camping in paid camp sites. It varies widely. Camping in one spot is allowed for up to 14 days, and then you’re expected to move 25 miles or so

BLM – Other than wilderness areas, BLM land is the least managed type of federal land. BLM camping rules are usually similar to National Forests, but BLM often has fewer rule and guidelines. In general, you can do what you want, as long as you don’t cause any damage, scare/hurt wildlife, and so on. As always, it’s still best to check the rules early on, and you’ll get more used to it over time. National Forests and BLM make up the vast majority of all Public Land. Camping in one spot is allowed for up to 14 days, and then you’re expected to move 25 miles or so

National Recreation areas – The rules can vary a lot. In some you can dispersed camp. Some recreation areas have free campsites with some amount of improvements

National Wildlife Areas – Some do allowed camping, but the rules for these vary widely.

National Wilderness Areas – These areas are intended to be left to the plants and animals. You can hike through them, and you can hike in and camp, but you can’t drive in and camp – and there aren’t roads to drive on anyways.

National Monuments – They vary a lot. Most are managed by the National Park Service.Some are just one small point of interest and there is no camping at all. Some are managed by the BLM and are very similar to BLM land – and you can camp all over.

State parks – The rules in most State Parks are similar to National Parks – meaning you’re only allowed to camp in improved campsite that you pay for. You also have to pay to get into most State Parks. A National Parks Pass gets you a discount at some State Parks, but won’t get you in for free.

State forests – There aren’t a lot of state forests. The ones I’ve encountered had camping rules like National Forests

Camping on BLM land in western Arizona. The land isn’t all that exciting, but I believe this area has the best sunrises and sunsets in the U.S.

Locating Federal Land

Do not use only Google Maps! They can be horribly inaccurate in showing National Forests, and they do not show BLM at all.

The ARCGIS mapis the best maps I’ve found for locating federal lands. It shows all federal land, but it does not show state land, so you won’t see the State Parks or State Forests.

[[ Update 10/20/2017 — It looks like the ARCGIS map is switching to a paid model, and will stop working for free fairly soon ]]

The Western U.S. is mostly federal land. It’s all ours! It’s an incredible place for nomadic outdoorsy people. All those orange and light green areas are BLM and National Forests. That means you can camp for free in most of the entire western half of the country. Wow!!!

Here is a closer view, looking at southwestern Colorado

Note that the cities and towns are not very visible on this map. You’ll likely need to look at this map along with another one to sort out exactly where places are.

Now, let’s say I’m in Durango (I actually am as I write this), and I want to go camping up in the mountains nearby. Here’s where Durango is:

That purple land to the south is Indian Reservation. To the north is some National Forest. So, let’s check out that National Forest.

What National Forest is that?

The ArcGIS map doesn’t say. Let’s look at Google.

It does show. That’s the San Juan National Forest. Ok. We’ll need to know that for finding a Motor Vehicle Use Map later on.

But sometimes, well, actually often, Google does not show the National Forest names. Or the names may be shown but it’s not clear enough because you can’t see borders. Here is part of Utah, with no National Forest names at all.

You can find out quickly with a search. Here’s the image search result for “national forests in Utah”

Looking closer, I can see that the area I was looking at on Google was Dixie National Forest

It may not be super clear from this picture, because of the shapes of the forests, but it’s pretty easy to match them up when you’re looking yourself.

Finding MVUMs

Motor Vehicle Use Maps (MVUMs) are maps made by the Forest Service. They show where it is legal to drive vehicles. Some MVUMs also show where you are allowed to dispersed camp.

It is important that you adhere to the MVUMs. The rules in Forests are enforced in a very wide variety of degrees. In some Forests, you’ll almost never see a Ranger, and in some parts of other Forests, the Rangers enforce the rules strictly and give out tickets with fines to those who break the rules.

And the rules can be a little tricky. In a city, where there’s a road, it’s commonly understood that you can drive on it. The only reason you wouldn’t is if there’s a big “road closed” sign and barricades blocking your way. There are a lot of roads in National Forests, and generally, you can drive on all of them. But there are times where the Forests close a road. They generally do put up a gate and sign blocking it. The problem is, these are remote areas, a few jerk faces here and there decide they want to go down these road, so they take out the signs and toss them behind some bushes, and then if a ranger confronts them, they’ll say “I didn’t know it was closed, there was no sign when I came through”. So, the rules are that you must follow what’s on the map. There are, at times, roads that you can drive right onto and down, but that are actually closed and it’s illegal to drive on (and there either never was a sign there, or some jerk face removed it). The MVUM is what shows where it’s legal to drive. It is the only official document. If you’re driving your vehicle in a place that isn’t shown as a road on a MVUM, it’s possible for a ranger to come ticket you. It doesn’t matter that you were ignorant about it being closed, it’s your responsibility to use the MVUM and know where you are.

Now, don’t get too worked up. It’s not nearly as complicated or risky as it sounds, and if you use common sense, you’ll probably never get a ticket, much less have a ranger tell you you’re doing something wrong.

Since an MVUM is the main source of driving and dispersed camping laws, you should always get copies of the them for the areas you’re planning to go. Here’s how to get them:

Go to a National Forest building. This is the easiest method if you end up near one. They have different names, generally starting with the N.F. name. Sometimes they are called Ranger Stations, sometimes Visitor’s Centers, and sometimes other things. For our example, we were looking at San Juan N.F. in Colorado, so you could search in Google Maps for “San Juan National Forest” and the results may show the Forest buildings. When you go to one of these, there’s going to be a desk or table with a person present to talk to you. They’ll have paper copies of their MVUMs, and they are always free, plus they’ll usually have other types of maps, some books about hiking or animals in the area, and so on.

Download them from the National Forest Website. This is the way to do it if you’re not near one of their offices. You can generally search for the forest name and the official website will come up first. Go to the website and click on “Maps and Publications” on the left side. Then look for the MVUMs. The layout of the maps page can vary by forest. The Forests are divided up into Districts, and there is typically one separate MVUM for each district. You should probably just download them all. To sort out what district is in what part of the forest, look at the vicinity maps on the MVUMs, or do a Google image search for Google search “[National Forest name] ranger district map” and you’ll probably find a map of that forest showing it’s districts.

Ask the Forest Employees Where to Camp

If you go to get a paper MVUM, ask the employees for advice. Often, they know the area very well and can help you find the kind of campsites you enjoy. The expertise of the person working at the front desk varies though, sometimes you may get a person who doesn’t even know what a MVUM is, and sometimes you’ll get a person who knows the whole forest district like the back of their hand.

Ask about these:

Dispersed camping rules for that forest / district

Get paper copies of MVUMs, if you want, ask if they have MVUMs for nearby districts and forests.

Is there a fire ban?

Are there any current wildfires?

Tell them what kind of campsites you like, what type of vehicle you have, and if you’re also looking for hiking or water stuff near where you camp, and ask them which areas would work well for you.

Ask them about areas you’ve already researched (sometimes it works well to already have places in mind, and then you can ask them about those specific roads and areas), and ask if there are better areas to go than these ones

Ask about road conditions for getting to these

Even if you do a very good job scouting out roads and campsites on your own, sometimes the rangers will be able to tell you about recent occurrences – like how a road just washed out last week and you won’t be able to get past this certain point, or about a big gathering of Jeep lovers happening in that area you were looking at, and if you go there it will be really crowded.

Using MVUMs

The very upper left corner of the MVUM will show the Forest and District name (Upside down).

The left side of the map has information such as the road symbol key, notes about when roads are closed, and notes/rules about dispersed camping.

To use the map, first orient yourself using the little vicinity map that shows the outline of this map with in the whole Forest. It will be over on the left side.

Here’s a closer look at the vicinity map

Ok. Now we’re going to look at the map and see if it shows where dispersed camping is allowed. In some Forests, you’re only allowed to dispersed camp off of certain roads. For those forests, the roads that you can camp near are usually designated on the map using little dots along each side of the road. Like this:

So this means you could drive along that road and if there are some sites established, you can camp in them. The dots do not correspond to actual campsites being where each dot is. The dots are always in that same pattern/spacing.

For the MVUMs that do not use this designation, you will either be able to camp off of any road in the forest, or only in a few specific designated dispersed camping areas. If it’s the latter, it is usually explained on the left side of the map and then there is a certain symbol on the map where these areas are. If the map doesn’t have the dots and doesn’t say anything about dispersed camping, you’re probably allowed to do it anywhere, but check with the rangers just to be sure.

Let’s look at the map near Durango:

There are’t a lot of roads in the forest close to town. There’s that one almost straight north (that 204 leads to), and some others over to the west. Let’s look closer at that area to the west:

Wow. There’s a lot going on over there. We have those 6 campsites, plus dispersed camping on a handful of roads.

One thing to note here is that those white areas you see near the bottom are private property. Don’t camp there. Sometimes there are signs and fences marking private property, and sometimes there aren’t. The main thing is: don’t go over the fences and past private property signs. Some private property looks no different from the rest of the forest and even has established dispersed campsites. You shouldn’t camp in those, but it seems like the owners are unlikely to freak out about it.

Sometimes the official/improved campsites are free.

For the area we’re looking at as this example, we could look up those campsites to see whether they are free. We can just search for them in google and they’ll come up. (Search for “Bay City campsite” or “Bay City Campsite San Juan”).

Ok, I see that Bay City is a free campsite. But, uh oh, people don’t have very good things to say about it on the internet:

So I’m not going to plan on staying there. And, assuming Douglas Tooley is correct, all those other campsites along the road are not free, so I won’t bother looking them up.

Now, let’s look at those roads. First off, they are shown using a strange road symbol. The map key shows that this road symbol means the road has a special designation:

We can look up the designations on the map. They’re in a table over on the left side of the map, like this

Looks like most all the designations say that these roads are open from June to December. It’s now August, so we’re good.

Ok. So we’ve found some roads that we’re allowed to camp on. I highlighted them on the MVUM:

Now… let’s go check those out on Google maps and see how they look.

Google Maps brief overview

Ok, first, for those not familiar, Google Maps has a handful of different views:

Normal map

Satellite view (the 2D Picture)

Satellite view (the crappy 3D rendering)

Terrain view (a topo map)

Street view

In this post, I’ll use the normal 2D satellite view and the terrain view.

Here’s how to switch between them. To switch between the normal map view and the satellite view, you can click the little square box in the bottom left corner.

To turn on the terrain view, you click the button in the top left corner with three horizontal lines, and then click terrain

If you’re not familiar with how topo maps work, here is bit of an explanation. The terrain (topo) map shows the elevation, or altitude of the land. There are lines on the map corresponding to specific altitudes. A line that says 7,000 means that everywhere on the map where that line is shown is at 7,000 feet altitude. If you were to walk along that exact line, you would walk a flat path. A line next to it for 6,950 means that spot is 50 feet lower, and thus, there is a hill going upwards from the 6,950 line to the 7,000 line.

We can use this view to see what the lay of the land is like, where the hills are, where the low points are, whether a road is going uphill or downhill or is going on a flat path along the side of a hill. We can learn the kind of things that I’ve noted on the map below.

If you’re in the satellite view and get stuck looking at a crappy 3D rendering, here’s how to switch to the normal 2D picture: click the button in the top left with three lines, then click “3D On”

Using Google Maps to Find Campsites

Ok, again, here are the areas we identified on the MVUM:

Let’s look at road 171. I’ll pull it up starting at the bottom of that circled area.

Examples of places to camp

I see a few potential spots out there. Right where the dispersed camping starts being allowed, there is this trailhead:

The main trailhead parking lot is to the right of the horseshoe bend, and then there’s short a path/road going north, and it looks like you could go camp up there. I recommend we find another spot. If the hiking trail is very popular, that main lot will fill up, and then cars will park in that other path to the north.

Moving on, this might be a spot to camp:

Here’s one that looks more promising

Zooming in, we can see what’s likely a fire ring. That’s a very good sign

Ok, here’s another one. Looks like some people were parked or camping there when the picture was taken

Here’s a spot. There’s a fire ring down there, but it looks like maybe you can’t drive all the way in to that clearing where the fire ring is.

Areas with the most trees are the most difficult to find campsites using satellite view. In places like the PNW where there are way more trees than this, it is more difficult and you almost have to go drive the road. Of course, if you know you need a campsite where you’ll get sun for your solar panels, then you’ll just be looking for clearings in the trees and those are easy to spot on the satellite view.

Finding campsites on satellite view is probably the easiest in drier areas. Here’s a look at a spot near Sedona, Arizona, which is extra easy because it’s a popular area to camp so you can see vehicles and tents in many sites:

When you are looking for places to camp, you’ll want some way of keeping track of what you saw. Here are some methods:

Just get a general idea of a road and if it looks ok, go there. Relating to the example I’m using, now that we’ve seen there are some camp sites along road 171, I know that’s an ok place to go look for a spot to camp. If I’m going to head out soon and I’m not looking at many different roads, it’s easy enough to remember one or two roads that look ok.

Put markings on a paper map (A MVUM or road map)

When you find a spot on Google Maps, click the map so a marker comes up and then write down the GPS coordinate

Here are two more methods where we’d record the campsite locations on an online map:

Record spots in Google Maps

Record spots and/or highlights areas in Google’s My Maps

Using these allows you to mark spots exactly, and have those markings on a map that you can use later in the future without having to save a ragged old MVUM or papers where you wrote them down. Once you’re accustomed to updating these online maps, it’s easy. It does take a while to explain and show with pictures, so I’ll do it in a separate post.

Examples that are not places to camp

Here are a few examples along this road that might initially seem like places we could camp, but they probably aren’t.

In this first one, there’s clearing of trees and there’s dirt/rocks. That’s just a hill. It’s probably steep, so we’re definitely not going to camp there.

Here’s a road or path we could drive on, coming down from the upper right corner. But.. then the path sort of disappears and comes back again. It’s a path that is rarely driven on. It’s likely not a good place to plan on traversing. It might end up being very bumpy.

These things below are from road graders. While grading the road, they push excess dirt and rocks off to the side. Those little slanted paths going off are often very inclined (at a sideways angle) and they aren’t a place to camp

Examples of Road Conditions

It is important to know the capabilities and limitations of your vehicle, and to assess roads so you know what you’re getting into. Roads in these remote areas exist in many different conditions. Some are well maintained and you could drive any vehicle on them, and some are never maintained and are rocky and perilous. Here’s a few simple examples to get you started on assessing roads:

It can be tough to assess roads using only pictures from high above. You can’t be exactly sure what you’re seeing, but they can give you a general idea.

If you’re really doing a lot of exploring, Books showing 4×4 roads and trails, like the ones Charles Wells and Matt Peterson write can be very helpful. They have a road difficult classification system – something like easy/moderate/difficult/hard. If roads that I’m thinking about driving on are classified by them as easy or moderate, I can expect to drive them. If they’re classified as difficult or hard, I won’t bother trying.

A few of the National Forest maps have a system for classifying the road conditions that gives wonderful clarification on which roads you’ll be able to travers with your vehicle. This is really handy, but it exists on very few MVUMs

Finding campsites with good views

Everyone has their own preference on what makes a good campsite. I like having a nice view, where I can see far and wide. Here’s an example of a spot with a good view, and how you can get an idea whether spots you’re researching will have nice views.

If there are many trees where you’re looking, you’ll need to find spots that have fairly large areas free of trees. Here’s one.

Generally, you’re more likely to have a good view when there’s a downward sloping hill in front of you and you can see a long ways. Here’s what the terrain map shows for this spot:

So from that spot, the hill goes downward in most directions. When we compare the two maps together, it looks like many of the downhill directions also have no trees for a while down. That means we’ll be able to see at least past the edges of what’s shown in the terrain map. We could also zoom out on the terrain map and compare the nearby area. If it’s all lower than 10,000 feet, we’ll be able to see a long ways.

Here’s how it looks in person at that site:

Yeah – it does have a nice view

Once you go out there – choosing a site

Once you’re off a main road and driving along a back road, if you pass a vehicle coming in the opposite direction, wave at them and ask about the road condition and whatever else you want to know

When you get to where you’re seeing campsites, take one of these strategies:

As you see sites, check them out. When you find sites that are quite nice, mark their location somehow (on Google Maps, on paper, record the coordinates, write down what your odometer was at and be ready to do the math, or just remember it in your head). If you really like one spot, stop there and camp. If you’ve driven enough and decide you don’t want to drive further, go back to the best spot you found

As you see sites, check them out. Once you find the first acceptable site – where you wouldn’t mind camping, stop there. Don’t get totally settled in. Just get situated enough to go on a hike or a bike ride to check out other camp sites. Bring your phone along so you can mark spots on the map or write down the GPS coordinates. Find the best damn camp site in the area. Then go back to your vehicle and drive it to that campsite. Now you got some exercise and the best campsite around. You win.

Wyoming has some incredible back-roads

Finding Campsites from Online Resources

I’ve described how to find campsites on your own. Another option is to check resources where people have shared campsite locations. You can look at mine, of course, and find some wonderful campsites like you’ve seen in these pictures. There are also public sites with contributions from many people.

I don’t use these a lot, so I probably don’t know about all of them. Here are some:

FreeCampsites.net – Most entries are from folks with big trailers and RVs. There are way fewer entries than on Campendium

Allstays.com – Looks like it’s just RV Parks and paid campsites. I think this is aimed at truck drivers and RVers.

My map of campsites. Most sites on the map are in Arizona, Utah, and Colorado. (Available on Patreon for $1/month Partrons)

When you use these resources, you should still look at the area on maps. See where it is, what the roads are like, if there are other campsites nearby, etc.

If you know of more campsite location resources, particularly ones that you find useful, share them in the comments and I’ll add them to this list.

A reminder – the federal lands in the western U.S. are incredibly huge – over 100,000 square miles, which is almost 30% of the United States. Don’t just look at these campsite resources and limit yourself to what’s on them. Go out and explore. Find new places and soak them up.

This has been my favorite campsite so far. It’s in Northern Arizona, next to the Colorado River.

Conclusion – Get Out and Explore

Americans have a colorful history of moving west across the continent, of exploring, of trailblazing, of finding rugged and beautiful places to camp and call home. We’re incredibly lucky to still have all this land belonging to all of us, so join in on the tradition. Peruse your maps, load up your supplies, and set off.

And while you’re out enjoying the views and forgetting about the hustle and bustle of the world, read a book that helps you connect with this great American past. Here are two of my favorites, they’re both continually entertaining and also both include great descriptions of the huge and wonderful landscapes, the plants and wildlife, and many stories and details about the other people they encountered.

Roughing It, by Mark Twain – About Twain’s adventurous travels through the western U.S., including attempts at mining and the kind of hi-jinx you expect from Twain. It has such tall and colorful tales that it’s hard to guess which are true and which are legends or jokes. Sometimes I found myself wondering whether he made the whole thing up, and then when he shared some story or details that I could check to confirm, I’d look them up, and they’d be true. It’s a wonderful read.

Also, if you use a different method in general for how to find free campsites, share it here in a comment.

I spent June exploring the wonderful state of Utah. It’s full of inviting deserts, lush high altitude hills, wide and deep canyons, river washes, cozy slot canyons, arches, hoodoos, and so on. SO MUCH STUFF!

I shot a TON of pictures in June, and this post will be full of them. I’m also experimenting with dumping in some of the captions I’ve written over the last month for my Instagram posts.

MAP OF TRAVELS

I started out June down in the southwest corner of the state, in Zion, and ended in Grand Junction, just across the Colorado border.

CEDAR CITY

Wow! So many fucking kids. What’s in the water here!?

TOWARDS BRYCE CANYON

I camped for a few days in Dixie National forest between Cedar City and Bryce Canyon. It looks like there are many good places to camp around here.

This nest was only about 15 feet from my van, so I got to watch the parent(s) come and go.

I shot these pictures in Dixie National Forest, east of Cedar City. It’s not that far from Bryce Canyon National Park – which looks incredibly different.

From where I camped for only one day, I saw 5 or 10 deer out of my van windows. There’s a meadow nearby that I walked over to in the evening, and there were a few different groups of deer there – about 40 in total.

I had wonderful songs from birds. And I had wonderful sunlight shining in through these aspen trees.

I met a Peruvian guy up here while looking for a campsite. He lived in an old style wooden trailer – basically a covered wagon. The wagon appears to sit there full time (he had no vehicle). He works up there, herding sheep. He’s been in the U.S. for 10 years, but doesn’t know much english, because he’s spent those ten years alone in places like this. I saw a video once about these sheep herders on Youtube, and it was really interesting. The herders are basically all guys from Southern America. They stay up in the National Forests full time, in these old style trailers, or sometimes in cabins. The sheep owners bring them food and water, and move them and the trailers to other locations. I would’ve taken a picture of him and his wagon, but he didn’t want me to. .

I love this kind of forest

Aspen trees all over the place. Some old dead trees that have been on the ground a long time

Lush grass

Free of thick plants or bushes, so you can walk everywhere

Birds singing their songs, flying around, and keeping their eggs warm

Deer meandering through and looking relaxed

Sunlight filtering in through the Aspen leaves

The air clean and a little bit sweet smelling

A breeze blowing through and making nice white noise as it filters through the leaves

Nowhere else to go. Nowhere else to be. No worries. No crowds of people, or traffic, or noise, or work deadlines, or chores to do.

The world simplified down to this area and it’s beautiful balances of plants, animals, sunlight, and weather.

Thoughts while driving on a road like this and looking for a campsite:

The day is full of possibilities…

Will I find a wonderful place to camp?

Will the roads be good for riding my bike?

Will there be nice sunsets?

Will I see deer, pronghorn antelope, elk, BEARS?

Will be it windy, rainy, cold, hot, cloudy?

Will there be birds singing songs for me? (well, not for me, but I’ll still get to enjoy them)

Will there be a cell phone signal to keep me connected to the parts of the world I wish to be?

How long will I feel like staying before I have the urge to move on?

DRONE SMASHED TO PIECES!

While I as on my way to the campsite above, I stopped to fly my drone. And while flying, it turned over past 90 degrees sideways and dropped like a sack of rocks. It fell from about 80 feet in the air and crashed into the ground really hard. As soon as I saw it tip over like that, I figured that was it – no more drone for me.

The plants weren’t all that crazy thick where this happened, but it still took me a while to find the drone. As expected, it was smashed really bad. The camera and gimbal broke off entirely and I didn’t find them. One of the arms was bend really bad. The body was all smashed up and cracked open. I’m sure a bunch of the electronic connections inside were broken. I gathered up all the pieces that I could find and threw them in the trash in the next city.

So – what went wrong? I didn’t crash it into a tree or anything, it just turned over and fell from the sky. I had made some adjustments to the controls sensitivity recently, but I thought they seemed conservative, even within the ranges available. The drone had been drifting more than usual during this flight – downwards, and I probably should’ve stopped flying it to recalibrate it. I’d been flying it for about ten minutes, and when I pushed the control knobs to have the drone turn and fly quickly, it tipped.

There are many different things that could’ve gone wrong, but I don’t know which did. It could’ve been that my controls adjustments were actually too much. It could’ve been that it got too far out of calibration. One of the arms was bent from crashes that occurred while the previous owner had it and it’s propeller blade often hit the arm while flying. That propeller could’ve broken. A motor could’ve failed. There could’ve been a short in one of the many wire and connections. Who knows. But… no more drone.

Daaaaang. I really would like to get another – a Mavic Pro, which are small enough to carry on hikes. Flying the drone and editing the videos was a lot of fun. But…. I don’t like the idea of spending ~$1,300 on something that can suddenly fall out of the sky and smash to pieces. There is crash replacement insurance available at a reasonable cost. I just still don’t feel like spending the money on it right now.

For a couple weeks after, it sucked when I saw a place that would be awesome to use a drone. But, you know, this kind of “sucks” is entirely imagined in my own head… It’s someone thinking “oh man, damn it, it would be so cool to drive a Ferrari right now, this sucks!”

Another Campsite:

I dipped my toes, or, maybe my whole leg, into astrophotography. I have a bunch of other shots I’ll share soon in a separate blog post.

ROVA sent me a copy of their second issue. For those interested in living and/or traveling in a Van, RV, or camper, you may like this magazine. There were good articles in this one.

BRYCE CANYON NATIONAL PARK

I spent 4 or so days in Bryce Canyon. I don’t like it anywhere near as much as Zion.

In Utah, there are many striking landscapes. Many of them are from water carving out rocks and dirt into beautiful landscapes and shapes. Zion has hard sandstone rock, and Bryce has a softer, more dirt-like material. So in Zion you have these flattish edges of hard rocks that I find beautiful. In Bryce, it looks more like dirt that has eroded, and I think it’s ugly.

I grew up in the midwest, where plants can grow everywhere. If a yard or some land has bare dirt that then erodes, it is a sign that the land is not cared for, or that it’s owner is incompetent, and his precious topsoil is washing away.

GRAND STAIRCARE ESCALANTE NATIONAL MONUMENT

Excalante National Monument is huge. I mean HUGE. Zion National Park is 230 square miles. Escalante is 2,900 square miles. Plus, it’s surrounded on all sides by federal land for hundreds of miles. And basically no one lives permanently in Escalante N.M. This is the most remote part of Utah, and maybe of the entire lower 48 states.

There are some awesome places in Escalante, particularly along a road called Hole in the Rock Road. There are arches, slot canyons, big interesting rocks, and a wonderful hike down a canyon through what’s called Coyote Gulch.

Mormons

Hole in the Rock Road follows a trail taken by Mormons on their way to found a new city on the east side of the Colorado River. 200 people set out with 83 wagons and 1,000 head of livestock. Crossing the river turned out to be very difficult. The river has cut a ~1,000 foot canyon through the rock. They found a place where the canyon wall was cracked and spent months blasting it open and making a very rough and very steep path down to the river. They went on and formed a town called Bluff, where now about 300 people live.

Plans

I really wanted to go to Coyote Gulch, which contains the Jacob Hamblin Arch. Coyote Gulch is basically at the end of Hole In the Rock road, 40 or 50 miles south of the highway. There was a big forest fire nearby, making a lot of smoke, and I was concerned that the smoke appeared to be going down that way – basically straight south along the road. At the visitor’s center in Escalante, I asked about it. The guy said that the smoke clears out about a third of the way down the road.

Slot Canyons – Tunnel and Zebra

After setting off town the road, the first place I stopped was where a trail leads to two slot canyons. These were fun.

While I was exploring and photographing these slot canyons, it got really, really smokey. It was clear that the guy at the visitors center was either wrong or has very perceptions of smoky vs clear. I could also see all the smoke floating straight south, in the same direction as the road, and too all the areas I wanted to go camp and hike and photograph. I don’t like the smoke, and it basically ruins any landscape pictures of things more than 20 feet away. So I decided to head back up to the highway and go northeast and get out of the smoke. I expect that I’ll come through Utah again and that I’ll make it all the way to the bottom of this road.

DRIVE THROUGH THE REST OF UTAH

It was getting really hot in Utah, and I decided to get over to the rockies sooner rather than later. So I drove a couple hundred miles from Escalante to Colorado in 2 or 3 days.

I drove through Capital Reef N.P., and it looks good. I was considering going down to Moab and Arches, but decided that I might as well go up into the mountains and leave those places for some later and cooler time.

Various Driving Pictures

This is the Escalante Canyon, seen from along hwy 12. Wow! Some day I want to come back and hike along and inside this canyon. Also, hwy 12 south of Boulder is an INCREDIBLE road.

Hike near the Escalante River

I hiked up along some creek that meets the Escalante right by hwy 12. There are two neat things there: various native rock art, and a big arch.

I believe some of this is recent/fake (probably the ones on the outsides)?))

A hundred handprints. These were up along a rock wall and were visible from quite far away if you knew they were there.

And here’s the arch:

Hey where are you camped? … Nowhere..

Two of the most common questions asked of people who travel full time are: “How much does it cost?” and “How do you earn an income while traveling?”. In this post, I’ll share my spending details for the first three months of 2017. I’ll continue these updates each quarter. This may help you estimate how much you’d spend living a similar lifestyle. In other future posts, I’ll share more details of how I saved and invested in order to create (what I hope will be) enough lifelong income to fund all my spending.

I want to show you that a lifestyle like mine – full of travel, adventures, living in beautiful places, meeting fascinating new people, and even pursuing hobbies that aren’t exactly inexpensive – can be had for quite little money.

First, some clarifications

I will share a spending update at the end of each quarter.

I track and include every single dollar of spending. These updates are not just the money I spend on travel or my van, it is every dollar I spend.

I’ll share the total of how much I spent, and details of what I spent the money on. I’ll differentiate between spending on what I’ll call “essentials” and “extras”. If you’re thinking about how much you’d need to spend for a certain lifestyle, it’s likely my “essential” spending amounts will be more useful than the “extras”. The lists below show what I include in each category. As you’ll see, there are grey areas, and a lot of what’s in the essentials category is not truly essential. But for the sake on simplicity, this is how I’m categorizing them.

When I sell some hobby equipment, I count it here as negative spending

I have a more or less fixed income of around $1,500 per month. I spent a decade being a good cog in a large manufacturing machine. I invested much of my income and those investments are now the source of my ongoing income. So far, the $1,500 per month seems like more than enough to fund my lifestyle. I’m motivated to spend less than that, but I don’t much desire to spend as little as possible. Many other travelers are in different situations. Some work full time and need a way to find enough income to cover their spending. Some who travel have saved up some money and are spending that cash. Once they run out of money, they’ll go back to work. These last folks have much more motivation to spend as little as possible because it means traveling longer. My income will continue no matter what I’m doing, so I don’t have those reasons to reduce my spending as low as possible. Other people who travel or live in a vehicle full time have told me they spend only $200 per month.

One of the reasons I’m sharing my spending is to help dispel a common misconception people are indoctrinated with from childhood: that spending money makes you happy. For the most part, there is little connection between spending money and happiness or joy. Recent data currently shows that happiness increases as income increases, but only up to $75,000/year, and then it doesn’t really make a difference. Consider for a moment that this data comes from a population indoctrinated that more money means more fun. Much of the money I’m spending is not to “buy happiness”. It’s mostly just to exist as I do. My happiness and joy come primarily from the perspective from which I view things, and secondarily from how much I’m learning/growing and how many fun things I’m doing. Much of my spending on “extras” is to buy things that I will use and many many times. It’s not trading money for one-time happiness or entertainment. It is important to break yourself of the common misconception that spending money = entertainment/happiness. I don’t mean to say that spending money on experiences is wrong for absolutely everyone, but I do think many people spend money this way indiscriminately. I’ll surely rant on this in later posts.

Spending Update – 2017 Q2

For Q1 of 2017, my average monthly spending was $895. This is a little higher than I’d like, but not bad. I spent an average of $813 per month on essentials, and $82 on extras.

My “essentials” spending was higher than normal in June. I paid for 6 months of van insurance ($186), and bought a bunch of new clothes ($376). That clothes spending would fit better in “Extras”, but I’ll just stick to the categories as I set them up.

Spending Vs. Income

The chart below shows how much I spent each month (the red bars) compared to how much income I had (the green bars) and a running total showing the surplus/deficit (the area). This chart starts when I started traveling full time in the van.

Here’s the same chart, but starting the surplus/deficit from scratch at the start of the year:

I’ve saved and will reinvest 40% of my income so far this year. Nearly all the income came from investments. YAYY! I also got a tax refund, because I worked the first half of last year. With that, I’ve saved nearly 60%. While not even working.

Investment changes. More income!

The vast majority of my income is from dividends. I didn’t like my old employer’s 401k investment options, so after retiring, I converted my 401k money to a Traditional IRA. In that IRA, I put the money into a handful of Vanguard funds that pay decent dividends. I’m not a big fan of them, because the dividends vary and seem a bit unpredictable. The yields also aren’t all that great.

In June, I converted some of my Traditional IRA money from VYM (a well-diversified fund of large companies paying moderate dividends) to some REITS: OHI, WPC, and SBRA. These pay much higher dividends.

In my Roth IRA, I had money that I converted from Traditional to Roth earlier this year, plus some more from dividends within the Roth. I bought O (Realty Income Inc.) with that money.

These changes resulted in a $1,900 per year increase in dividend income. I’ll probably convert more of the Vanguard funds into individual stocks over time.

A common question I get is: “where is your favorite place you’ve camped?”. I’ve never had much of an answer because I’ve liked most of the places I camp so much that it’s not worth wondering which is my favorite. But now, I found a place I like so much that I can call it my favorite campsite.

I was planning to go this general direction, but wasn’t sure exactly where I wanted to go or where to camp. My brother solved that by finding this spot on Instagram. A guy with an account named @fiftyfivesquarefeet posted a drone video from when he camped there.

Navajo Nation

I drove up from the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. So I drove about 100 miles through the Navajo Nation (A huge Indian Reservation that covers the northeast corner of Arizona). It was an interesting drive. A good deal of the land there looked odd and inhospitable. There were a lot of hills of odd colored dirt/sand/rock with absolutely no plants. There are a lot of very small homes in the reservation. Some people would call them shacks or shantys. There are also clearly no type of building code enforcement. If I had a house, that’d be about the size I want. So I’m not entirely sure whether these shacks are because that’s all they can afford, or if they have housing preferences similar to mine.

The Navajo Nation is a mysterious place for me. I don’t fully understand their rules related to camping there. It seems that you need to pay for a permit (maybe $15), and pay a nightly fee (Maybe $5). If I understand that right, I probably won’t camp at all on the reservation unless it’s to camp out at a specific place that I want to photograph. It’s not my style to pay money to sleep in my own van in the middle of nowhere when I can do it for free all over the place.

Getting there

The campsite is on the west side of the Colorado river. In this area, the river is the border between U.S. and the Navajo Nation. The reservation is on the east side of the river. The campsite was on the west side, on some BLM land.

Crossing the river was cool. There are two bridges right next to each other. The newer one was built because the older bridge wasn’t designed to support the heavy loads that are common now. So now the older bridge is for pedestrian traffic. There’s a little visitor’s center on the U.S. side that you can part at and walk out on the bridge.

Boaters on the river

There are a lot of boaters floating down the Colorado, especially here. They get on the river at the old site of Lee’s Ferry. It’s the only place in hundreds of miles where it’s easy to get down to the river. Nearly all of the river passes through a canyon like in the picture above. The river cut this canyon out over millions of years. Lee’s Ferry was situated at the one place where there’s an easy and gradual hill down to the river instead of near vertical cliff walls.

People get on the river at Lee’s Ferry and float down for various lengths of trips. Some of them will go all the way to Lake Mead (the reservoir at the Hoover Dam). Getting permission is difficult. There are two options: go privately, or pay an outfitter. To go privately, you’re supposed to get a permit. The permits use to be given out using a waiting list. But, the waiting list got to be 20 years long. So they changed to a lottery. I think about 5% of the entrants get a permit. The other option is to pay an outfitter. This is really expensive – $300 per day on the cheap end. I learned this from a group of older guys that came to the campsite one day to have lunch. They set up a table and got out a cooler and a bunch of supply boxes. I went over to talk to them. They gave me a beer and lunch. They’re from Flagstaff and have done a ton of outdoors stuff around here over the years. I asked them about how to score myself a spot on a boat for free or really cheap, and it seemed an unlikely thing to accomplish unless I wanted to work on the trip cooking, cleaning, and carrying people’s poop.

Down below the campsite, there is a stretch of rapids (going over the rocks that got washed into the river from the offshoot canyons on each side), and then a large beach. Some of the boaters stop here for a break or to camp overnight.

Driving into the site

On the highway

A highway passes along closer to the hills that are visible in the background. This road is gated (with a BLM sign that says to close the gate after you go through), and is about 2 miles from the highway to the end near the river.

The Campsite

The end of the dirt road is situated at the edges of both the river canyon and a big branch of the canyon shooting off at about 90 degrees. So – you get a lot of big views.

It was really windy the first couple of days there.

I stayed for about two weeks. Quite a lot of people came and went during that time. No one stayed more than two nights. Quite a few people drove the two miles to the end of the road, got out for only a few minutes, and drove off.

Every couple days, someone would come in and hold up an antenna connected to some kind of box. They were scanning for transmitters that have been placed in California Condors. There are only about 400 of these condors alive now. They’re dying off because they end up eating meat tainted with lead bullets/shot. The condors are huge – they have up to a 10 foot wingspan. They also have the ugliest head/face of nearly any animal in existence. A condor will travel up to 200 miles per day scanning for food. They eat mostly large animals like deer, sheep, elk, or cattle.

I saw one flying around and got out my binoculars to watch it closely. They are the most elegant and efficient birds you’ll ever see. The one I saw flew 10 miles without flapping it’s wings once.

I walked along the edge of the cliff above the river many days

A group of people with overlanding rigs showed up one day. They’d been at the Overland Expo in Flagstaff the previous weekend. As they approached, I figured they were big time overlanders who’d been to far away places. Nope, they were some dudes from California and Texas who go on weekend trips sometimes. Gear nerds, basically. Or, I guess, just normal people with normal jobs who don’t have much time for this.

A RAINBOW!

Can you see it?

A HIKE

I wanted to go down to the river. There’s a very nice looking beach down below the campsite. It’s about 500 feet down, with nearly vertical walls. But there are these other little canyons at 90 degree angles to the river – and the campsite is next to a big one. I’m sure these have a real name – what are they called? I’d walked along it a bit, looking down to see if it appeared walkable. Most of it looked good, but there was a section I was worried about. It looked like there were pretty big drop offs. But it’s hard to tell from a distance. Sometimes, once you’re there, you can find ways to walk or scramble down and up slopes that look impassable from a distance. (I easily made it about a third of the way down the cliff right next to the river, which you’ll get a look at in the drone video).

The day I tried to hike down, I walked most of the way back toward the road, to a place where I could walk down the edge into the offshoot canyon. But I didn’t make it very far after that. I hit the big drop offs. It would take someone with climbing gear to get down and up that with certainty.

So I waked back up the canyon a bit, and up the other side, and generally wherever it looked fun to go. I like this kind of no-trail hiking.

It’s further down than it looks. Maybe 200 feet. When it rains really hard, a torrent of water comes crashing through here, so thick with sediment that it looks like mud more than water, and so fast that it will pull up all the plants and move rocks as big as cars.

Snack break. mmmmmm, sardines.This is pretty much at the top/start of the offshoot canyon.

MORE OF THE AREA

DRONE VIDEO

I shot a lot of drone footage while I was there. The area is nearly perfect for it. The main challenge was that it was too windy much of the time. The other was waiting for clouds that make it look more interesting.

After a couple days of shooting, I realized the video was often shaky. I guessed that this was related to a weird noise and shaking that the gimbal made right after starting the drone. It would turn on, and the camera would move around, and then it would start shaking and making a pretty loud noise. I did some research online and found that this is fairly common, and the likely culprit was a set screw on an arm that holds the gimbal being too loose. It could be tightened with a 1.5mm hex key. I have a ton of hex keys. I had a 2mm. I had a 1mm. But no 1.5.

I’d just went into Page the day before to get food and water. A hundred mile round trip. Ugh. Normally, I’d wait until I was in town the next time to get something like this. But this was such a great place for drone shooting. So I drove to Page again, found a set of hex keys at Wal-Mart, and tightened the screw. And, it fixed the problem. YES!!

LEE’S FERRY

I’d told the old guys that I had lunch with about how I tried to hike down to the river. I’d seen a trail shown on Google maps on another offshoot a couple miles upstream, and asked them about it. It’s called Cathedral wash, and yep, you can walk right down. Problem is, there’s not a beach where that wash meets the river. But there is a nice beach another couple miles upstream at Lee’s Ferry. So instead of doing the hike to the river that I’d been imagining I just drove down to the beach 😀

Driving there

These take many thousands of years to happen. A big rock falls from the hill above (the wall is now ~100 feet behind where I took the picture), rain and whatever erodes the ground away, except for the part holding the rock up – turning it into a pedestal. Eventually the rock will fall off. There were many of these right next to a certain hill/cliff. I don’t understand why they happen here and not in most other places.

In May I spent some time camping with my brother, found my favorite campsite so far in all of my travels, and played around with the drone and video editing. I went to Sedona, the Grand Canyon, further up the Colorado River, Horseshoe Bend, and Zion National Park. Wow!

MAP OF TRAVELS

I started out the month in Las Vegas. I’d been there to meet up with friends who flew down from Portland. I had a wonderful time with them. I drove from Vegas to Sedona to meet my brother. On the way, I stopped for a night in Flagstaff. That city really has a pull on me. I like it a lot. It’s an awesome place to spend some time during the summer.

SEDONA – WITH MY BROTHER

My brother, Brandon (@thetinglytraveler ), realized he had multiple sclerosis in 2015. He was having a standard successful American life: a stable job that he was very good at and was promoted to manager, a nice house in Denver with a sweet garden, time and money for his hobbies

If I understand correctly, the biggest challenge he had (other than now M.S.) was all the stress at work. He was extremely loyal to his company, and thus ended up having a lot of responsibility and stress there.

After his diagnosis, he changed his life quickly. He Started eating healthier and running, and lost excess weight he’d been carrying for years. He found a wonderful girlfriend. He started thinking about how to reduce his stress at work.

House prices had went up a lot in Denver. Brandon sold his house in Denver and moved in with his girlfriend. Then, they sold her house. They both quit their jobs. They got a truck and a travel trailer. They’ve been traveling around the U.S. the last few months.

They expect to choose an area to buy some land and start a homestead. He’ll probably work more. I expect it will be in a technical role that he enjoys.

I’m proud of my brother, and I’m excited for them.

We crossed paths Sedona and camped together. It was nice camping with them and catching up on their travels so far, trying to give each-other things that we no longer use and don’t need (neither of us were successful at offloading much of anything), comparing ideas of places to travel to, sharing some meals, going on a hike, and so on.

Remember that drone that Dan of Big Ox Little Bird gave me a few months ago? I had a heck of a time getting a charger and batteries for it. I’d gotten the charger after about a month, and one of the batteries I ordered didn’t arrive in Phoenix until after I’d left the city. (The other never did). When my brother passed through Phoenix, he picked it up from me from my cousin before heading north to Sedona. So, I finally got to use the drone. It’s a lot of fun.

This was the first video I recorded with it. I wasn’t even checking the exposure and the sky is all blown out.

We had loose plans to travel together for a while. We weren’t sure how long it would work out, as we have our own sort of speeds of movement, and they would need to go back to Denver fairly soon. We made plans to go up to the Grand Canyon next. I got itchy feet about a day earlier than they did, and headed up there. it was useful for me to go first as I could scope out potential campsites for them. Their trailer doesn’t have a lot of ground clearance, and their dog is scared of other dogs and people. So – I could go check what the roads were like and try to find a campsite that’s a bit secluded from other campers.

The next day, after they ran errands and started heading up, they had trouble with their trailer. Something with the wheel bearings – I believe not having quite enough grease and basically burned up. So they were stuck down a bit south of Flagstaff for a few days.

GRAND CANYON

I camped in the National Forest south of the Canyon. I ended up staying in 3 or 4 different spots. I’d drive over to the canyon each day, and then just go to a different spot. At the spots nearest to Tusayan, there was a lot of low flying helicopters, so I only stayed there one day.

I didn’t really like taking pictures of the canyon. It’s so huge that the other side is all hazy. When shooting with a wide lens, it’s basically all the same and just blends together and looks flat and boring. I did go shoot there during sunrise one morning. I didn’t think I got much of anything, but I did end up with one picture I really like (the first one).

After a few days, there was some cold weather approaching. I didn’t know when my brother would get the trailer fixed and head up, and I wouldn’t be of any help if I went back down there. I wasn’t crazy about the canyon, so I headed off to a really cool campsite that my brother found on Instagram

ALONG THE COLORADO RIVER

This was my favorite campsite of all my travels so far. It’s on some BLM land that goes right up near the edge of the canyon. It’s near the old site of Lee’s Ferry, and it’s quite remote. It’s only like 10 miles from Page as a bird flies, but it’s 50 miles of driving.

I stayed here for about two weeks. I ended up making 3 trips into page. One of those was an extra trip to go buy a 1.5mm hex key. A hundred miles for a $.10 tool.

Why? Well, I was flying the drone a lot, and realized it had a problem. The gimbal was shaking around a lot. With a little research online, I saw it was likely because of a certain set screw not being tight enough. I needed a 1.5mm hex key to tighten it. I have a ton of hex keys in various sizes. I had a 2mm, and I believe a 1mm. But no 1.5. I wanted to fix it while I was still camping out here because it was an awesome place to record drone footage. Tightening the set screw did fix the gimbal vibration issue. So, then I had to re-record all the clips I’d gotten so far.

I have a lot more pictures from here, and an incredible nice drone video, but I’ll save it for a specific post about the spot. Here’s a taste of it:

I was flying my drone a lot and one evening I was sorting through clips and editing them together. The way I had my van parked, the setting sun would shine in through a window and reflect on my computer screen, so I had my curtains up. Those curtains sort of blocked out my view of the sunset.

While editing, I glanced out the front windshield and noticed a bloom of color on the clouds. A brilliant pink.

I jolted out of my seat, grabbed my camera bag and tripod, and scurried over to the edge of this canyon. I only had about 5 minutes before it faded away

PAGE & HORSESHOE BEND

I shot there at 3 different times. Here’s a picture from the first time. Yep, looks just like all the other Horseshoe Bend pictures.

I wasn’t that crazy about this place. The view is nice. There’s just so many people coming in and out and taking the same pictures. It’s sort of a zoo. At one point while I was set up and shooting, an old Asian lady who couldn’t speak english thrusted her camera into my hands and gestured for me to take a lot of pictures at different zoom ranges. I think she was scared to go up to the edge. That was actually kind of nice because she had a Sony a7 and I’d been wondering what it was like to use their electronic viewfinders.

ZION NATIONAL PARK

After a couple weeks near page, I figured I should get on into Utah. I’ve never been to southern Utah, and I’ve been looking forward to it a lot.

I drove back through Page and then to Zion National Park.

I drove through the park – on that road that goes through the south end. WOW! It’s an incredible drive. It’s a continual stretch of amazing views – literally the whole way, other than while inside the two tunnels you go through. The next day I hiked up Angel’s Landing.

I’ll probably have a bunch more pictures to share from Zion. I spent a couple days walking around the canyon and shooting.

PLANS FOR JUNE:

It’s gotten hot, and I’ve left Zion. I’ll come back again at the end of the summer or in the fall. I have a loose idea of where I’ll go next – maybe something like what’s shown below. This whole stretch from Cedar City to Zion looks super remote. The towns on the way are extremely tiny. I haven’t researched actual places, so if you know the area and have any suggestions, please share them!

A common issue for those traveling full time is that when you’re seeing a ton of different places, they can start to fade together in your memory, and you start to have less appreciation for new places and adventures. I’ll write today about why that happens, how it feels, and share some ideas of what one can do about it

VACATIONS FROM WORK – SO SPECIAL!

When I used to work all the time, going on a trip or vacation was a special. In my last few years of work, I traveled a lot for my job. On a few trips, when I went to Flagstaff or southern California for work, I made the weekends before and after the work week into camping trips..

These trips took me to places I’d never been. While driving, I’d often pull off road, get out, and take in the view. I’d daydream about having all my time free to do this stuff much more – to do it all the time. These places – these landscapes – grew to be where my dreams took place.

Those trips had a huge impact. I looked forward to them for a month before they happened. And I’d think about them after, enough to work those places into my daydreams. I’d imagine going back there with my van, retired and able to stop for a week or more. I can still remember many small details of these trips. The campsites, what at I ate, hikes, how I felt, and what I was thinking.

I appreciated these trips tremendously. Because I had time to think about them before and after going, I set the details into my long term memory. Also, I had my early retirement dream (and the actual point when I could retire fast approaching), so these trips were a peek into my future life.

Camping in Colorado with my dad and brother

IMPACT OF FULL TIME TRAVEL ON APPRECIATION

Now, I’m about one year into realizing that dream of retiring and traveling.I’ve been through 10 states and all kinds of wonderful places. Mountains, forests, rivers, deserts, beaches, cities. I’ve enjoyed it a ton. One thing I’ve noticed is that I have grown less likely to feel wonder and amazement.

After about 6 months, I began to notice a couple things. First, that compared to when I went on trips while working, it was now much harder to remember the details of my adventures. Second, I’m not feeling as much wonder, or amazement – or basically appreciation of my travels as on those other trips. This is a common experience among long term travels.

To be clear – I love doing this. I’m having a wonderful time. I just notice sometimes that I’m not appreciating this like I know is possible. I’d say on an appreciation scale of 1-10, I average 6. I think I should be closer to 8. (To be clear, I consider a 6 to be pretty high, and a 9 or 10 would be too high because it would dominate my thoughts and make me act weird)

Hiking with friends in Oregon

WHY THIS HAPPENS:

There are a multitude of reasons for this ‘appreciation challenge’, but I believe the main ones are straightforward:

1 – When I’m moving on from one great place to the next, I don’t spend all the time I used to thinking about them before and after going. Now, It’s just on to the next one.

2 – Since I’m traveling full time with no specific end in sight, I don’t feel I have to go all out to make every day really special. (And I shouldn’t. No amount of trying could make that happen. Real life doesn’t work that way – partly because #3 below)

3 – Hedonic adaptation. I’ve gotten used to spending my days at leisure in beautiful places. It’s now the norm.

A redwood grove in northern California

HOW TO INCREASE APPRECIATION?

Here are things that I’ve been doing, or may start, that help increase appreciation and enjoyment:

1 – Go slower. Stay in one place longer. Leave and come back to your campsite many times (on hikes, bike rides, drives into town for supplies, etc.). Ideally, stay more than 10 days.

2 – Journal about what you’re doing and how you’re feeling. Translating thoughts into words helps clarify or highlight them.

3 – Stay aware of bad feelings. When they happen, don’t fight them. Accept them as they come. Ask yourself why you’re feeling that way. 99.9% of the time, bad feelings are created in your own mind. Mostly they are from responding to an event negatively – and that mental response often does much more damage than the actual event.

4 – Being able to separate yourself from your feelings – to almost look at your emotions as a third party – helps to realize how trivial the bad ones often are, and to recognize when you’re feeling great and why. When you’re upset, ask yourself ”I’ve got all these things going great, and I’m unhappy about THIS?” (in a comedic way rather than judgmentally)

3 – If you take pictures or write about your travels, look back through them regularly. Set those places and days into your long term memory bank.

4 – Regularly think about what you have to be appreciative for. This could initially be forced – like forcing yourself to list 3 things each day. When you develop a habit of it, it works better. (For example, whenever I’m driving any significant distance, it usually crosses my mind how great my van has worked out so far and how amazing it is that I can get something so useful for so little money)

5 – Talk to other people about this stuff. It doesn’t have to be a cheesy “what are you thankful for?” type thing, just reminders here and there of how great many things are.

Do you have other methods to increase your appreciation? What are they?

I spent most of my April in Arizona. A few incoming packages took longer than expected, and kept me near Phoenix longer than I wanted. I camped up north of Phoenix along Highway 87, and also near Sedona. Then I headed over into Nevada to meet some friends in Vegas.

Here’s everywhere I went in April (starting in Phoenix)

SPOT WEST OF 87

(33.94633,-111.45529)

There’s a nice little group of spots to camp just a couple miles off hwy 87. I’ve camped here three different times. This last time, I went down to a spot that’s a bit off of the road and behind a hill. I’d never seen until midway through my second time camping there when I noticed that a few people went back there. It’s a little hairy getting there (the road is slanted sideways), and it’s really hard trying to find a flat spot down there. But it’s nice though.

You can see the van down there near the middle of the picture

PHOENIX AGAIN:

I drove back into the city to pick up a package, and stayed for a few days. I watched the last few hours of the Paris-Roubaix bicycle race online. That’s always a fun race to watch.

SEDONA

During two of my three vehicle living test trips, I spent time in Sedona. It was one of the places where I decided I wanted my current lifestyle. I’d been looking forward to going back. I tried to go camp in the exact same place I did the first time there, but it was occupied. I ended up camping in three different spots

1 – Southwest of Sedona: (34.68848, -111.86182).

This is one of the spots that a guy at the visitors center recommended. It was ok, but not very good as far as campsites near Sedona go.

2 – West of Sedona – Forest Service Road 525c. (34.879, -111.94486)

This was close to the where I’d camped on the test trips.

It’s close to the Robber’s Roost – a cave overlooking the way into Sedona. Robbers and bandits, used to hide out here when they had some heat. From the cave, they could see people approaching from far away. Also, while in the cave, you can hear people from below very well.

3 – “Base Camp” – Forest Service Road 525 (34.82324, -111.90566)

I went into town in the afternoon, and didn’t leave until it was starting to get dark. I didn’t want to sleep in Sedona, so I came out to this spot – just about the first place you can camp on 525 when coming off the highway. Many people stop here and then find another more secluded spot somewhere along 525 or 525c and move to it.

I stayed here one night. Some balloons landed nearby.

4 – Forest Service Road 525 (34.8682, -111.90365)

Near the north end of where you can camp on 525 is closer to the hiking and biking action. A lot of the spots on 525 can hold many rigs and end up being communal spots. There were 3-5 other groups present while I was there.

My campsite is in this picture, over towards the right

The weather was absolutely perfect in Sedona and I was enjoying being there. After about a week, I was getting itchy to move on though. I had plans to meet some friends in Vegas at the end of April, so I found a place to camp on the way there.

LAKE MOHAVE – Telephone Cove

(35.23068, -114.59371)

Telephone Cove has free camping. And others, I believe. It’s a pretty nice stretch of beach. The pictures below don’t show it, but it was a bit crowded here because there was some kind of boys’ camp going on at the other end of the beach.

Then I got itchy feet and drove to Vegas early.

LAS VEGAS

Parking lot behind the LINQ – (36.11835, -115.16655)

Street with parking near the Link/Ferris Wheel/Westin/Cromwell (36.11631,-115.16643)

I went out to Vegas 9 days before my friends would getting there. I’m not entirely sure why I went so early other than that I felt like moving on from where I was previously. I spent the first weekend at the strip and it was fun. I’m very used to going places and doing things by myself, but I’ve only been to the strip when it was with friends. This time, on my own, it wasn’t quite the same.

This was a good place to park the van. It’s a big parking lot for the LINQ casino/hotel. It’s temporarily free until after they do some kind of construction project. There is a ton of security patrolling the lot and it’s well lit. You have to not make it obvious that you’re sleeping in a vehicle though or security will tell you not to.

After 3 or 4 days at the strip, I went and hung out around other parts of the city. Vegas isn’t all that nice. The UNLV Library is really really nice though. I go to a lot of city/county libraries, and sometimes there are too many bums there. Really stinky ones. At this library on UNLV campus, it was only students. Everyone’s clean. Everyone’s nice. The wifi is good. And it’s beautiful – I mean, just look at this place:

I think I’ll start hanging out around campuses more when I’m in cities.

My friends arrived the next weekend. While waiting for them in the airport cellphone lot, I did the following:

Ate dinner

Moved water from my big reserve jug to my smaller jugs that I normally use

Repaired my sandals (Sewed part of the velcro back on one)

Once my friends arrived, I drove them to their hotel on strip, and we hung out at the strip that night. The next day we went to their pool, walked around the strip, went to the pool again, and then went to Fremont Street to gamble a bit and walk around. I think we had more fun at Fremont street than on the strip. It’s smaller and sort of simpler. You don’t have to spend 10-15 minutes walking to go from one place to another like you often do on the strip. We also walked past what’s probably considered the normal end of the Fremont street area (on the east end) and continued. There are some fun weird/hipster type places there.

On Fremont Street. (Downtown Vegas)

My friend is a champion of making stupid faces

The last day they were there we went over to a thrift store (a Buffalo Exchange north of the strip – it is a good one), and then back to some casino where we had lunch. Then they headed back home, and I was ready to get out of that city.

Wow. When I put all the places I went in one month into one post, it sure looks like a lot.

PLANS FOR MAY

Two of the most common questions asked of people who travel full time are: “How much does it cost?” and “How do you earn an income while traveling?”. In this post, I’ll share my spending details for the first three months of 2017. I’ll continue these updates each quarter. This may help you estimate how much you’d spend living a similar lifestyle. In other future posts, I’ll share more details of how I saved and invested in order to create (what I hope will be) enough lifelong income to fund all my spending.

I want to show you that a lifestyle like mine – full of travel, adventures, living in beautiful places, meeting fascinating new people, and even pursuing hobbies that aren’t exactly inexpensive – can be had for quite little money.

First, some clarifications:

I will share a spending update at the end of each quarter.

I track and include every single dollar of spending. These updates are not just the money I spend on travel or my van, it is every dollar I spend.

I’ll share the total of how much I spent, and details of what I spent the money on. I’ll differentiate between spending on what I’ll call “essentials” and “extras”. If you’re thinking about how much you’d need to spend for a certain lifestyle, it’s likely my “essential” spending amounts will be more useful than the “extras”. The lists below show what I include in each category. As you’ll see, there are grey areas, and a lot of what’s in the essentials category is not truly essential. But for the sake on simplicity, this is how I’m categorizing them.

When I sell some hobby equipment, I count it here as negative spending

I have a more or less fixed income of around $1,500 per month. I spent a decade being a good cog in a large manufacturing machine. I invested much of my income and those investments are now the source of my ongoing income. So far, the $1,500 per month seems like more than enough to fund my lifestyle. I’m motivated to spend less than that, but I don’t much desire to spend as little as possible. Many other travelers are in different situations. Some work full time and need a way to find enough income to cover their spending. Some who travel have saved up some money and are spending that cash. Once they run out of money, they’ll go back to work. These last folks have much more motivation to spend as little as possible because it means traveling longer. My income will continue no matter what I’m doing, so I don’t have those reasons to reduce my spending as low as possible. Other people who travel or live in a vehicle full time have told me they spend only $200 per month.

One of the reasons I’m sharing my spending is to help dispel a common misconception people are indoctrinated with from childhood: that spending money makes you happy. For the most part, there is little connection between spending money and happiness or joy. Recent data currently shows that happiness increases as income increases, but only up to $75,000/year, and then it doesn’t really make a difference. Consider for a moment that this data comes from a population indoctrinated that more money means more fun. Much of the money I’m spending is not to “buy happiness”. It’s mostly just to exist as I do. My happiness and joy come primarily from the perspective from which I view things, and secondarily from how much I’m learning/growing and how many fun things I’m doing. Much of my spending on “extras” is to buy things that I will use and many many times. It’s not trading money for one-time happiness or entertainment. It is important to break yourself of the common misconception that spending money = entertainment/happiness. I don’t mean to say that spending money on experiences is wrong for absolutely everyone, but I do think many people spend money this way indiscriminately. I’ll surely rant on this in later posts.

Spending Update – 2017 Q1

For Q1 of 2017, my average monthly spending was $670. This is right about where I like it.

I spent an average of $500 per month on essentials, and $165 on extras.

My “essentials” spending in Q1 was mostly food and gas, and the level of spending is about what I want and expect. My food spending feels pretty high, but I’m eating very well.

The “extras” spending in March included:

Some tea

Bike parts – tubeless tires and some parts for setting them up

Bike parts – a smaller inner chainring (I’ve been riding up some really steep forest service roads and have to walk sometimes)

I expect my ongoing spending to be close to what I spend over the last three months.

Spending Vs. Income

The chart below shows how much I spent each month (the red bars) compared to how much income I had (the green bars, with income shown as a running 3 month average to smooth it out), and a running total showing the surplus/deficit (the light red area, which goes negative).

In another month or two I will have gotten back to zero from the big camera purchases I made in October. That was a very uncommonly large purchase for me.

Like all types of numbers, the way this data looks depends a lot on what I select to show. I did my taxes in March and got a fairly big federal return. That money is not shown in the chart above because it’s really essentially just getting back my own 2016 income. It doesn’t apply to what I use the chart for.

If I start this chart at the beginning of the year, and include that tax money, I have a surplus of over $4,500 because I’ve spent only 30% of my income. YEAAH BUDDY! Got it made.

I’ve wanted to start earning some income from hobbies. As you can see, as long as I don’t spend a lot, that investment income easily covers all my spending. Months like January and February where I ended up with an extra $1,000 per month don’t motivate me to earn more income.

What about you?

Earlier today, I listened to the latest Mad Fientist podcast. His guest was a personal finance icon: Vicki Robin. She’s the author of “Your Money or Your Life“. If I had to recommend one single personal finance book to the wide population, this is it. In it, she helps you remove unhealthy views of money and spending (feelings of sacrifice, or guilt, or “I deserve it”). She teaches you how to properly quantify and analyze your money as your “life energy” (your time). Also, she shows you how to spend money more intentionally, in line with your personal values and with what brings you joy. She shows you how to take complete control of your spending. No more feelings of guilt or sacrifice.

Near the end of the podcast, the host asked Vicki “If you could share just one piece of advice for our audience, what would it be?”. Her answer was: track and review your spending.

Do you track your spending?

If you do: what do you get out of it? How much do you spend per month on average? Are you happy with that amount?

If you don’t track your spending: Why not? And, if this is you, stop whatever you would’ve done after reading this, and read Your Money or Your Life.